The hard, waxy crust of SnackWell’s Devil’s Food Cookie Cake is something I can remember with all my senses. The sound of hitting the hard outer surface with your fingernail, the smell of breaking it, and the quality of a sponge. Scrape under your fingers and under your teeth. “Cookie” came close to baseline satisfaction, but never fully satisfied. As a kid, this was my midday treat. Claim In order to be “better than ever,” I know that I have always wanted something much better. By doing so, I succeeded in leaving the world of SnackWell.
The important thing to know about the (very profitable) diet food industry is that it’s built on the concept of calories as meaningful markers of health and nutrition, but it’s pretty clear In fact, many articles have been written over the past decade supporting the idea that calories are basically… just vibes.
Why Calorie Counting Doesn’t Work
“Even if two people eat the same sweet potato or meat cooked the same way, they won’t get the same amount of calories,” Rob Dunn writes. Scientific American There are many reasons for this, including the size of the intestine, the presence of certain digestive enzymes, and overall differences in human metabolism. So the dreaded Nabisco 100 Calorie Pack may not even provide just 100 calories worth of nutrition when you need it.
“100 calories” isn’t necessarily the right prescription for everyone.Afternoon snack.as a podcast maintenance stage It’s explained in a recent episode called “calorie problemCo-host Aubrey Gordon explains that the measurements have been drilled down since the dawn of nutrition labeling (2,000 calories per day).not suggestive The amount of fuel our bodies actually need to function properly.
“The FDA said they never intended to make 2,000 calories a day a nutritional guideline,” says Gordon. “They said they designed it to be a popular educational tool…meaning it was designed to help consumers easily understand what’s in their food.” but not necessarily “Here’s some rigorous and quick information. I’m not recommending that everyone should be getting 2,000 calories a day.” here.)
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When the U.S. government began creating the “Nutrition Facts” label now used on all packaged foods, Survey conducted by USDA Find out how many calories Americans typically consume in a day. Responses vary widely, with women reporting her 1,600 to 2,200 calories per day and men reporting she’s 2,000 to 3,000 calories.
know what we know self-reported biasit can be reasonably assumed that the actual amount of calories consumed was likely higher, or at least at the lower end of these ranges. Atlantic I will explain, the number 2,000 was chosen instead of the originally suggested 2,350. This is because, among other reasons, it is an orderly approximation and less likely to “encourage overconsumption.” In other words, you are being preemptively scolded for the amount of food you need in your daily life, even though you haven’t eaten it yet.
When you combine the shaky foundation of calorie labels with our bodies’ uneven processing of these calories, we have to ask ourselves: Why? Why stick with numbers you don’t care if you’re depriving yourself?
For many, the answer may be that these raw numbers have a sense of control. We put a lot of hope and prayers into the idea that, with enough discipline, our bodies may eventually become efficient machines capable of processing precise inputs into precise outputs. I’m here. But food isn’t the only thing our bodies process. We are asked to function despite varying levels of stress, sleep and pollution. You might need a 100-calorie pack or more of carob chip-encrusted cracker crisps to endure all of this.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t think about what they eat. I’m saying calorie labels aren’t the way to monitor it. And of course, we understand that your hunger deserves to be satisfied.
