Death of the calorie

Death of the calorie | 1843 Magazine – The Economist

“For more than a century we’ve counted on calories to tell us what will make us fat. Peter Wilson says it’s time to bury the world’s most misleading measure.

I always thought that digestion was extremely complex and not just dependent on the type of food we ingest, the physiology of multiple organ systems digesting, but also our microbiome and overall state. Inheritance certainly is a key factor.

“As a general rule it is true that if you eat vastly fewer calories than you burn, you’ll get slimmer (and if you consume far more, you’ll get fatter).“ But it is not that simple. “Each body processes calories differently. Even for a single individual, the time of day that you eat matters. The more we probe, the more we realise that tallying calories will do little to help us control our weight or even maintain a healthy diet: the beguiling simplicity of counting calories in and calories out is dangerously flawed.”

“The only major organisation to shift the emphasis beyond calories is one dedicated to helping its customers slim down: Weight Watchers.”