There is no such thing as Empty Calories

A calorie is a specific measurement of heat.

According to Sports, Science and Medicine a calorie is a "Unit of work and energy. One calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 g of water by 1°C at normal pressure."

In the body a calorie count is a measurement of energy derived from a food source. In this context a calorie is a calorie and has the same value of energy whatever the quality of the food source it is derived from.

Those low calorie fad diets are dangerous. For example, eating only enough food to derive 800 calories worth of energy for the bodies cells is not nearly enough to sustain the energy demands of your body for an entire day even if you live a completely inactive life style (unless you're a very small person). You need more than 600 or 800 calories in the course of a day or you will waste away til death if you're consistent enough with it. To figure out roughly how many calories you should be consuming use this fitness calculator and re calculate once per week.

Now that we know calories are simple because the value of a calorie is always the same from one to the next. Regarding calories All you need to pay attention to is the quantity of calories, not the quality because calorie quality is irrelevant!

Nutrients are the complex factor here, not calories. Nutrients vary in quality from one food source to the next. Some foods are more nutrient dense than others and contain different kinds of nutrients along with different partitions of those nutrients from one to the next. It is a lot to monitor! Generally the body wants the foods that are more nutrient dense and all natural ingredients. Nutrient dense food is far more useful and metabolized by the bodies cells than food with empty nutrients.

If you're interested in eating right for your body so the body can heal itself and prevent illness then avoid the nutrient empty foods such as ice berg lettuce, white colored mushrooms, and foods with artificial sweeteners and trans fats. Instead eat nutrient dense whole foods such as the green leafy lettuce, the various brown colored mushrooms, and foods with all natural ingredients.

The phrase, "empty calories" should be replaced with empty nutrients in everyone's vocabulary. It would clear up a lot of misguided confusion about the "empty calorie" debate.

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