Not all calories are the same, and calorie counting is pointless.

Once upon a time, our pets were being looked after while we were on holiday, and one of our dogs secretly ate macadamia nuts, which can be very poisonous to dogs.

(Unfortunately, our cat has a habit of jumping on surfaces and knocking foods onto the floor, which our ever-hungry pug very much takes advantage of when he can).

However, our ever-hungry pug doesn’t chew and gobbles food like a monster, and it’s quite common to see whole foods in his poop. Thankfully, this terrible mistake was only realised a couple of days later, when a few macadamia nuts appeared fully in tact when they came out the other end.

In this instance, what the nuts contained clearly wasn’t fully absorbed by the body, right? (Phew). This is the difference between gross energy (the total amount we eat) and metabolisable energy (the amount we actually keep, after losses through urine and feces).

Well, this happens for humans too. When we don’t chew things very well, some of the food energy passes through us.

And, what foods we eat can also influence this.

Foods that are high in fibre can cause a little more energy to come out the other end, for example.

Foods that are very heavily processed might be easier to breakdown (like peanut butter, peanut flour or peanut oil versus whole peanuts).

Truth be told, if we all eat EXACTLY the same number of calories every single day, the number of calories I absorb might be a bit different to the number you absorb…

and both of these numbers probably change a little bit all the time, depending on what we eat and how we chew.

But, that’s ok, because we don’t have to obsess about every little tiny detail all the time, you know?

Calories still matter, food labels are still useful sometimes, and human beings are complicated.

Hopefully that takes quite a long, complex and boring topic and simplifies it in a way that you all understand, lol.

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References:
- Discrepancy between the Atwater factor predicted and empirically measured energy values of almonds in human diets
- The Metabolizable Energy and Lipid Bioaccessibility of Tree Nuts and Peanuts: A Systematic Review with Narrative Synthesis of Human and In Vitro Studies
- Mastication of almonds: effects of lipid bioaccessibility, appetite, and hormone response