Count calories no more

Peter Wilson, in a long article in The Economist and its 1843 Magazine, says it is time to declare the Death of the Calorie. Nearly all diet programs follow some variation of counting calories, saying reduce the number of calories going in and increase the calories burned through exercise, and one will lose weight. Except those of us who have struggled with dieting know that doesn’t actually work.

In 1887 Wilbur Atwater popularized the idea of the calorie as a unit of food energy. He conducted experiments, such as burning foods in device that could measure the heat given off. Groundbreaking stuff – for the time.

Wilson lists these problems with counting calories:

Atwater popularized the idea that a calorie is a calorie, no matter the food it is from. So the most calorie dense food – fat – must be bad for you and carbs and sugar must be good. But that kind of diet has made people fatter. As more people became fat various government agencies doubled down on calorie counts. Only recently was it required on menus in America.

Calorie counts listed on food packaging probably aren’t accurate. Regulations allow understating calorie counts by 20%. In some cases they are off by as much as 70%.

A calorie of carbs and a calorie of fat may give off the same amount of heat when burned in the lab, but in a human body there is a lot of difference between the two. There’s also a big variation between human bodies and how well they absorb calories from one food or another. For example, a person with longer intestines absorbs more food.

Calories from sugar and simple carbs are absorbed quickly and can play havoc with insulin regulation. Calories from complex carbs are absorbed much more slowly. And proteins and fats more slowly still.

The amount of calories we absorb from food also depends on preparation. Both chopping and heating aids absorption.

The amount of calories burned by a body also varies. More calories are burned when a person needs to keep warm from cold weather or from drinking calorie free iced tea.

So, what’s a person to do? Eat real food. Listen to your body – eat when hungry and stop when not.

If count calories doesn’t work, why is the idea still promoted? Because the idea is simple. Because there is little momentum to change. Because the idea is entrenched in the diet industry. Because it lets food producers off the hook in justifying their unhealthy products. Because the sugar lobby is strong.

It is time to lay the calorie to rest.