Why Calorie Amounts Differ For Same Amount of Food?

[TechnicGeek]

I was never into monitoring calories and just used smartphone app to monitor food intake which just shows how much of certain food is norm to consume. For a long period I was excluding "feeling guilty" type of food and recently started consuming it again as it helps stress management. I noticed that some processed foods for same amount of quantity provide different amount of calories.

For example in a package of 200g of waffles with chocolate or lemon flavor filling, 100g provide 503 calories. A serving size is 13g (1 waffle) as indicated on package and provides 65 calories. If daily calorie norm is 2000 calories, that's just 1 package of waffles that makes up for 1/4 of daily calorie norm. Isn't that a lot, considering size of waffles (11cm x 2.5cm x 1cm)? How can they cram 1/4 of daily calorie norm into such small package? Is this what they consider benefits of modern food processing technology? Minimizing size while keeping it calorie-rich?

Another example is "Danish Style Cookies". This time it's a big package of 270g of cookies where serving size is 30g (4 cookies, 7.5g each) and provides 130 calories. In this case 16 cookies would make up for 503 clories that 8 waffles do. If we compare waffle and cookies the ratio difference is huge. 1 waffle is 13g = 65 calories and 1 cookie is 7.5g = 32.5 calories. From perspective of mass both are almost same while cookies don't have filler like waffles.

Would someone enlighten unenlightened one?

Thanks

[Fitafter50]

I'm not 100% sure what your question is, so if I'm not answering it, I apologize in advance. The waffle and cookie stats that you are using as an example don't seem to be that much different.

1 waffle is 13g = 65 calories and 1 cookie is 7.5g = 32.5 calories. That would mean that 65 calories of cookies is 15 g., which isn't that far off than the waffle. The difference would be due to the ingredient list. Maybe the waffles have more fat, or a different type of flour?

The bottom line is that if you want to be healthier, you'd be better off not eating processed foods like packaged cookies or waffles at all. There are tons of recipes for healthy, homemade versions of both.

[TechnicGeek]

1 waffle is 13g = 65 calories and 1 cookie is 7.5g = 32.5 calories. That would mean that 65 calories of cookies is 15 g., which isn't that far off than the waffle. The difference would be due to the ingredient list. Maybe the waffles have more fat, or a different type of flour?

In this case I still think both pack too much of calories, are they not? Just the fact that 8 waffles can get you 500 calories, 1/4 of daily norm seems a lot for something small like this. Magic of processed foods? I mean a big bowl of salat (cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, onion, radish) will probably be below 50 calories and will leave you feeling full, without cravings. I heard how body's digestive system does not understand processed foods, leaving you to want more...

The bottom line is that if you want to be healthier, you'd be better off not eating processed foods like packaged cookies or waffles at all. There are tons of recipes for healthy, homemade versions of both.

Can you estimate how much calories will something home-made like processed foods I mentioned would have? I actually avoided home-made and baked stuff from wheat, flour too thinking it would not be significantly safer than processed foods.

[Fitafter50]

Yes, I'm sure they both are full of empty calories, and are not great food choices. That's one reason I don't count calories--I think looking at nutrient density is a much better way to rate foods.

You could make waffles from plantains; they would have more nutrients and fewer calories.
http://holdthegrain.com/sweet-plantain-waffles/

I make cookies from this recipe:
http://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/2013/09 ... s-add-ins/

If you don't crave carby type foods like cookies and waffles, they certainly are not a necessary part of a good diet.

You could input the ingredients into a calorie calculator to figure out calorie count..

[Boss Man]

Hey Technic, if you want to work out calories there are simple ways to do it.

If I read the comments you made right, you're talking about the same kind of calorie content in both foods despite significantly different weight and dimensions of food, but this can be accounted for with the kinds of foods you're talking about, based on things like water content and also air content.

Example. You buy two loves of bread, both made by the exact same company and they are the exact same bread e.g. white bread, so they should be identical, but one looks about 20% smaller in size. This is then down to the amount of air in one versus the other. The smaller one is less aerated for want of a better word, but would still in reality have the same nutritional content, but the bigger one might make you think you're getting more bang for your buck and have more nutrition in it, but it wouldn't. The only potential benefit would be the ingestion of more locked in oxygen, which might help you with VO2 max

Protein is 4 calories per gram, except casein which is 8 calories.

Carbs are 4 calories per gram except alcohol carbs which are 7 calories per gram.

All fats are 9 calories per gram.

You can also get things called hidden carbs.

Example. You eat something that claims to have 10g protein and 12g carbs, which should make 88 calories, but the box says 90 calories, so that means somewhere there are 2 calories unaccounted for, which is where the hidden carbs thing comes in, as it means there is 0.5g carbs that could have been listed, but wasn't.

It should be made known though, that in reality this won't make a massive difference to your eating, as even if you ate 6 meals a day and 4 had an average of 0.5g hidden carbs per meal, that's an extra 8 calories a day.