4 ms·
> The original method used to determine the number of kcals in a given food directly measured the energy it produced.The food was placed in a sealed container s
by yodsanklai 10y ago
> The original method used to determine the number of kcals in a given food directly measured the energy it produced.The food was placed in a sealed container surrounded by water--an apparatus known as a bomb calorimeter. The food was completely burned and the resulting rise in water temperature was measured.
I don't think the article addresses the following point. I may be totally wrong but I suspect the residues of the combustion still contain organic molecules that could possibly be broken down furthermore by some other process and release more energy (I believe it's the case with fuel, I remember a chemistry teacher telling us that burning fuel was terribly inefficient).
Would it be possible that the digestion mechanism is somehow more efficient at breaking down this molecules and produce more energy than combustion?
- gambiting 10y agoConsidering how nutritious(for bacteria) our faeces are, I strongly suspect not. If anything, we know that calories from certain types of food (like nuts) are not absorbed in 100%, so even though a packet of nuts might say it has 500 kcal, it doesn't mean you will get 500 kcal out of it.
- eru 10y agoDigestion is a red herring here. It's how the nutrients are turned to energy in the cells. And that's an oxidization, just like burning but more controlled.