Calories and kilojoules: How do we know the energy content of food, and how accurate are the labels?

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Calories and kilojoules: How do we know the energy content of food, and how accurate are the labels?
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Everything we eat contains energy that our bodies use to maintain health.

1 gram of fat provides about 9 kcal of energy1 gram of alcohol provides about 7 kcal of energy.The first is called “bomb calorimetry”. This gold-standard method involves placing a small sample of food or drink inside a device known as a bomb calorimeter. The food is burned in the presence of oxygen, releasing heat.

The second method, the Atwater system, is a much less expensive method for estimating energy content. It is more commonly used when calculating energy of most food and drinks sold in supermarkets. Named after legendary food researcher, this system uses a standard conversion factor for each macronutrient found in food and drinks. By estimating the amount of each of the four macronutrients, an approximate calculation of the total energy can be made.

For example, a cup of oats grown in one part of the country won’t necessarily have the exact same nutritional content as another cup of oats grown elsewhere, due to climate and soil differences. So, this system is an estimation based on an average.food and drinks. But the actual energy our bodies extract from these foods and drinks can vary due to factors such as individual differences in digestion and absorption, as well as food processing and cooking methods.

Fresh foods such as fruit, vegetables and meat also don’t require a nutrition information panel. To find out the number of kcal in them, you can either run an experiment with a bomb calorimeter or look up an estimated value in an online nutrition database.compile information about the energy and nutrient content of various foods. Dietitians and other health professionals often use these databases to estimate the energy content of foods to inform dietary recommendations.

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