At the start of every new year, some of us make some resolutions and resolve to do something new.
At the beginning of every year, one of the promises made to oneself the most, or rather the most accepted one, is to lose weight and get the body in better shape. To achieve this, we often promise to moderate our intake of food and exercise daily.
You all know that the energy present in food is measured in calories, so many of us assume that if we reduce our calorie intake, we will achieve our goal of losing weight. Will do it
But is this the right approach, or does it need a rethink? Some experts not only consider calorie counting books to be an outdated method but also argue that it is dangerous. We are here to review calories historically.
What is calorie and where did this term come from?
A calorie is a unit of energy often used to express the nutritional value of a food item.
The term comes from the Latin word 'killer', which means heat, and has been in use for more than a century.
Dr. Gaels Yew, Professor of Molecular Neuro and Criminology at the University of Cambridge, explains to BBC that 'Nicholas Clement defined the calorie as the amount of heat it would take to raise one liter of water at the surface of the ocean by one degree Celsius. What is the quantity?
Clément was the first French scientist to use the term in lectures on heat engines in the early 19th century.
What effects did his discovery have on the world?
The scientific ability to accurately measure the calorie content of food items was a historic moment that changed many things.
Nick Kolathar, Professor of History and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, explains that 'we have suddenly moved away from a world in which a particular person's diet is directly related to their race, to the water and air they live in. Where they lived, their social class, and of course their gender, and no two foods could be compared. But suddenly, it happened that they started being compared.
There was a big change in our concepts and ideas about food and people started seeing food as a combination of proteins, carbohydrates, micronutrients, fats, etc.
Kolathar says that 'the body is now seen as an engine and food is seen as fuel. And the way people looked at food changed.
Even in the 20th century, calories began to influence public policy. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Japanese Navy imposed a dietary standard for its sailors, which they saw as bringing them in line with European standards.
Wheat, beef, and especially pork and chicken were included in the diet of naval crews and were widely distributed among the Japanese population. It is quite possible that the Japanese food that many of us enjoy today is a result of this dietary change.
Decades later, the United States used calorie calculators to determine this, and they did so to determine aid food to be sent to drought-stricken countries. At the same time, the League of Nations, which emerged from the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I, studied nutrition and established a standard classification globally in 1935, from which 2500 calories per day for an adult. was necessary
Now the widely accepted norm for a man is 2,500 calories and for a woman is 2,000 calories a day.
However, some experts say that the calorie calculation book has become old?
Some experts say that calorie counting is out of date and give reasons like this:
They say that even if different foods have similar energy values, they may not provide the same health or nutritional benefits. For example, a glass of milk has about 184 calories and similarly, a glass of pure beer has about 137 calories.
Geneticist Jaeelz Yeo points to this, saying that 'actually we don't eat calories,' we eat food, and then our body has to work to extract calories. Depending on what kind of food we eat, carrots, donuts, or meat, our bodies have to work to varying degrees to get calories from it.
The labels we see on food packets at the supermarket tell us how many calories are in that food, but they don't give you any indication of how much of it our bodies will be able to absorb.
He further says that out of every 100 calories of protein that we consume, we absorb only 70 calories. For the number of protein calories we need, we have to take 30 percent extra protein so that we can absorb the required calories.
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