How many Calories should we eat?

Download or read book How many Calories should we eat? written by David Broward and published by David Broward. This book was released on with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About 150 years ago, the engineers and physicists used the calorie to measure the amount of energy required to heat one kilogram of water one degree Celsius. Trying to determine the energy consumption of the human body, scientists burned in the calorimeter various substances (including food, drinks, and excrements) and measured the difference in water temperature. This is how we ended up with 9 Calories per gram for fat and 4 Calories per gram for protein and carbohydrates. That's why water is the only substance that has "Zero Calories," and this is how the calorie found its niche in nutrition. Yet, have you ever wondered... Why the Calorie is supposed to be capitalized when referring to the energetic value of foods and drinks? Why there are 2,000 Calories per day used for general nutrition advice (and not 1,500, 2,400, 2,700, or any other value)? What the claims found on the food labels actually mean? Which carbs are "good," which ones are "bad," and why we witness a global epidemics of overweight, obesity, and diabetes? What's the difference between saturated and unsaturated (mono- poly-, trans-, and interesterified) fat? Is there such a thing as a perfect diet? Why in the countries that have adopted the Metric System the energy is expressed in kilojoules and not in Calories? How much energy (whether expressed in kilocalories or kilojoules) a person needs a day? This book proposes to find an answer to the above questions (and many others) by connecting the information from various fields of science, including Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Thermodynamics.