three cucumbers two heads of lettuce and
three carrots equals 100 calories but a
quarter tablespoon of ranch dressing
easily adds another 100 calories half a
cup of chickpeas is 100 calories but
only four tablespoons of hummus this is
because hummus contains olive oil that
is high in fats bringing up the calorie
count but what is a calorie a calorie is
simply a measurement of energy when it
comes to food a calorie with an upper kc
now this is important weirdly is the
amount of energy it takes to heat up one
kilogram of water by one degree celsius
in other words it's basically how much
energy is available in the foods that we
eat we've become so obsessed with
counting calories because if we eat more
energy than we can use that extra energy
actually can get stored in our bodies as
fat or muscles and our society seems to
be obsessed with fat and muscles but the
way we actually calculate calories in
foods is based on the at water system
which is derived from experiments done
over a hundred years ago basically mr
atwater said four calories per gram of
protein nine calories per gram in fat
and four calories per gram in
carbohydrates but we now know not all
calories are the same where you get the
calories from matters most of us may
have heard the term empty calories it
refers to foods that have lots of
calories but little of the nutrients our
bodies need to literally survive this
amount of m ms contains 100 calories but
no vitamins and only one percent of the
calcium and iron you need 100 calories
of hazelnuts on the other hand will give
you a good chunk of your daily vitamin e
and magnesium this is one example of why
canning calories can be unhealthy but
also v confusing 100 calories is a third
of a chicken breast or a quarter cup of
macaroni with nothing else hashtag white
people food or a third of an impossible
burger patty or one third of a scotch
egg half a veggie sushi roll or 3 ounces
of palak paneer you could make a
smoothie with half a banana 12.5
strawberries 65 blueberries which is 100
calories or just make a smoothie with
water and protein powder as most protein
powders tend to be 100 calories per
serving and long after mr atwater died
we learned a lot about our metabolism
it's not just calories in there's a wide
range of factors that affect how our
calories and the food we eat affects our
bodies it all starts with physically
breaking apart the food and our mouth
chewing these smaller chewed up bites go
down as abolish to our stomach where
acid breaks down cell walls we get into
the small intestine where lots of
enzymes and bacteria get to work
breaking down molecules into glucose
which we can use in our cells for energy
in this process calories aren't treated
all the same in our body it takes more
energy to break down protein than
carbohydrates so the net gain of
calories is higher with carbs for
example 100 calories of turkey slices
takes more energy to digest than 100
calories of vanilla buttercream cake
processing food helps humans extract
lots of calories even simple mashing and
heating starts the process of breaking
down food so there's less our bodies
have to do heavy duty processed food
yields more calories for the same reason
so a handful of raw grains would be hard
for our body to digest and mostly pass
through as fiber so we wouldn't absorb
many calories but a yummy slice of
multi-grain bread would give us 109
calories but even then once the food is
ground or cooked our bodies absorb again
these calories differently that slice of
bread might be a good source of
nutrients for one person but a trip to
the bathroom for someone with celiac
disease celiac is a genetic disease
that's essentially an allergen to gluten
that's just one example of how genetics
affects our digestion but it's not just
genetics it's also our microbiome too
all those tens of trillions of bacteria
archaea and other microbes mostly in
your gut make up your microbiome without
them we couldn't break down basic foods
for instance the microbiome helps babies
break down sugars from the mother's milk
tis important but everyone's microbiome
is slightly different so people can
access different nutrients based on
their microbiome for example about 50 of
those living in asia can break down
certain compounds in soy while only 25
to 30 percent of us people in north
america can the delicate balance of
microbes might be set early in childhood
we get our first dose of bacteria from
our mama but then it changes based on
what we eat and what's in our
environment these shifts could alter the
way calories are absorbed the ability to
break down soy is actually decreasing in
younger generations in japan maybe due
to the rise of a more western diet most
people have a combination of two types
of bacteria in their gut bacteroidetes
and firmicutes studies show that people
with a greater proportion of firmicutes
tend to be more obese mice given a
microbiome transplant from obese sources
tend to gain weight when fed the same
diet this microbe combo could break down
sugars more easily and be so efficient
at extracting calories from food that
rather than just passing through more
calories get absorbed and stored as fat
this could explain why two people could
eat lots of 100 calorie servings of
peanut butter candy and one person gains
weight while their other friend doesn't
at all so the caloric value of anything
meat fruit bread veggies will change
based on your microbiome the way it's
processed your genetics so it feels like
maybe it's time for us to change the
concept of what a calorie is go forth
and feast with this new knowledge thank
you for watching and make sure you are
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say peace