How many calories do you need each day? The answer is "it depends on what you are doing". A person working hard doing manual labour expends more than someone sitting at a desk all day. So the calories in needs to be balanced with how much you burn up, unless you are trying to lose or gain weight. The standard applied is that the average human needs to consume approximately 2000 calories per day. Previously I have shared about what a calorie is and how calories are used to different efficiencies by the human body (ref http://bellasbitesph.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-wrap-catchup-from-world-of-science.html). The problem is that the food industry can only grow in limited ways - either they sell the products to more people, or people need to eat more. The ability to sell to more people is limited by many factors - how much time we have to eat, how much money we have to spend on eating, and the ability of manufacturers to get into new markets/countries and change peoples eating traditions. So to sell to more people is the hard and slow road to growth. How about making the same people who are already used to eating the products just eat more? This is exactly the question food manufacturers invested time and money into answering.
Dr Kessler, the former head of the US Food and Drug administration wanted to share his insights on the growth of overeating. As a former pediatrician, lawyer and head of the prime US body across food, he is well credentialed and has insight that is useful to understand.
In the first part of the article, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/10/09/3604793.htm, Dr Karl breaks down the main points of Dr Kessler's book "The End of Overeating". In this we learn how the food industry studied what drives our eating desires and how to create food that panders to this desire. In the second article, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/10/16/3608823.htm, the reasons why poor quality fast food is often chosen over more nutritious and better for you natural foods. Sugars and fats were rarer in the diet for many, many years of our human development. So any sweet or fatty food was a pleasurable reward for the body. Eaten in small amounts, no damage is done. For example, the food industry has created foods to reduce time spent chewing, which means that you get this pleasurable reward quicker. It also means that you can eat more in the same time. With the food being higher in calories, you are consuming more. And being an emotionally linked reward, your brain overrules you stomach. This is why the food industry uses packaging and advertising that triggers emotional reactions.The problem with this type of food is that it doesn't actually satisfy your hunger. So the only thing to do is to eat more often, and the profits of the big food industry will grow along with our waistlines. The other problem is that our tastes get conditioned to the higher levels of salt, fat and sugar and therefore to get a reward, more is needed.
So what to do? Some simple ideas:
1) Realising what is going on. - understand the food you are eating and ensure you are eating a diet that contains less processed ingredients, grains, fruit and vegetables.
2) Let sweets and fats be a reward but eaten in moderation.
3) Eat foods that will satisfy your hunger and let your brain trigger the natural response to stop eating when full, which will also be when you have the amount of calories your body actually needs.
4) Continue to do exercise.
5) As always, too much of anything is never a good balance.
To help illustrate what 2000 calories looks like, the New York Times recently put out this article, which helps show some common US chain foods -"What 2000 calories looks like at large chains". The additional thing to keep in mind is the earlier article about how calories in different types of food are digested and used by the body. It is still the same message - a calorie in a slow digested, unprocessed food source will be better for the body than a calorie in a soft drink.
In the next piece I will explore more about the way in which calories affect us. My hope is that these easy to read articles help us become better informed to make wise food and health choices. Because...don't you deserve better information to make your own choices.
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