Calories in Food
Do All Foods Have Calories?
Yes. Except for water, all
foods contain calories. The four main food types are: carbs, fat, protein
and alcohol. Each of these food types contains a different number of calories
per gram.
- Each gram of carbs contains
3.75 calories.
- Each gram of fat contains
9 calories.
- Each gram of protein contains
4 calories.
- Each gram of alcohol contains
7 calories.
To determine the number of
calories in a particular food, you need to know roughly how many grams
of carbs, fat, protein and alcohol the food contains.
For calorie details of 2500
Foods, see Calories
in Foods
Example of Calories in Food
For example, if a food contains
10 grams of protein and 4 grams of fat and 3 grams of water, then it contains
10 x 4 (40) protein-calories, 4 x 9 (36) fat-calories and zero water-calories
(water is calorie-free), making a total of 76 calories.
Are All Calories in Food
the Same?
Yes and No. Yes, if we take
in more calories than we burn, these surplus calories will be stored as
fat, no matter whether they are fat-calories, protein-calories or carb-calories.
That said, some types of
food-calories are more easily converted to body fat than others.
For example, calories from
fat are easily converted to body fat - only 3 percent of such calories
are actually used up in the conversion process.
By comparison, carb-calories
are less easily converted to body fat - up to 25 percent of these calories
are used up in the conversion process.
|
