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The calories per gram you reference is how much energy you get out of substance from literally setting it on fire. But how much actual energy is available to t
by JamesBarney 8y ago
The calories per gram you reference is how much energy you get out of substance from literally setting it on fire.
But how much actual energy is available to the human body is very different. And alcohol specifically is very hard for the human body to efficiently turn into eneegy.
In addition alcohol make the mitochondria more inefficient leading to greater energy usage.
Most studies that add alcohol to animals diet find no change in weight.
- dghughes 8y agoNutritional charts show the data I mentioned. Are you referring to the word calorie used? For food calorie is shortened from kilocalorie.
- JamesBarney 8y agoI'm saying the nutritional charts are misleading. A calorie is a unit of measure of energy right? But you can release different amounts of energy depending on the chemical reaction you use. Well the chemical reaction they use to measure energy in macronutrients is not the same chemical reaction that is used by the human body, they burn it instead. Now for most macronutrients this doesn't matter because the amount of calories released by the human body is pretty close to the amount released by burning. But this isn't true of ethanol which is very efficiently burned, but very inefficiently consumed by the human body. So the 7 Cal/gram is very misleading.