What 200 Calories of Various Foods Looks Like (2013) | Hacker News Reader

What 200 Calories of Various Foods Looks Like (2013)

twistedsifter.com

34 pointsTomte8 comments

I had this thought the other day, well, it's been a bunch of ongoing observations. I was a fat kid, mum had us eating healthy, but I was a really fat kid. Once I learned how to count calories, I was a regular, healthy weight young adult, as I am still today. Recently, my wife complained she'd gained a bunch of weight, I said "well yeah, your calorie intake to sedentary is out of whack" and she said "HEY! I eat healthy!" - I said, "sure, healthy but very calorie dense" - I watched her then adjust her eating a bit over the following month and then finally I asked her "do you know how to figure out about calories and stuff?" and she said "huh??" and so I explained BMR/TDEE and her mind was blown, so then I asked mum if she knew anything about calories and she said "only that they print them on the label" - funnily, my wife and my mother are both highly educated, and, I didn't know till I was in my early 20s.

Is it the case that very many people don't know about how calories work?

I think almost everyone has heard the classic (2k calories for an adult) factoid. Fewer people know what maintence, calorie deficits/surpluses are, that your calorie consumption is waaaaaay more important than "eating healthy" if you want lose weight, etc.

I would also hazard that there's a really large generational gap regarding knowledge around calories/counting/TDEE between Gen Z and other generations. Every single one of my friends knows the basics of calorie counting, that your calorie maintenance limit can be extremely far off from 2k, etc - even if they're wholly uninterested in fitness. And yes, my methodology is utter rubbish lol.

Hot dogs are 3x as calorie-dense as deli turkey? Are they really that fatty?

OTOH, deli turkey is mostly very lean meat with little fat, and fat has by far the most calories of any macro. Hot dogs, on the other hand, are filled with various vegetable oils (which are made up of fat), as is normal for processed meat products.

Worth noting that deli meats are often very high in sodium and can still contain non-trivial amounts of cholesterol especially if you like building mountainous sandwiches like I do and consume multiple servings at a time.

I swear I saw diets where fats can cause satiety or induce ketosis etc. Then I read oils are very energy dense and your body can absorb its calories with an efficiency that makes a SMPS blush.

Of course, and (AFAIK) keto was originally a diet high in fat and very low on everything else.

Now I want a meal with all of these things in it, in these quantities.

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