Calories, fat and sugar

Let's shock you today! I'm going to share with you something controversial. Get ready for it!

Calories have nothing to do nor with overweight, neither with obesity. Counting calories is very popular and multiple diets are based on it. And that's why the diets don't work like they should. So far everyone thought: 'I'm getting fat when I eat more calories that I burn'. In fact it's not so simple.

If you count calories you judge food by its caloric value. It's stupid because with this method you don't pay attention to the quality of the food and it's clear that cookies has different importance for your body than a banana or a fish. This method doesn't take in cosideration the role of the food in your body.

According to that, the scientists came to a conclusion that fat is worse than sugar – fat contains 9 kcal/g and sugar 4 kcal/g. That's why sugar is only half as bad as fat. But they didn't think that sugar is the cause of getting overweight and fat can even stabilize our weight and help us lose it.

So what makes us fat? Sugar, artificial flavouring and food additives like glutamat.

Overweight and obesity

In Great Britain 60% of adults and over 30% of children are overweight or obese. The problem of obesity grows quickly all around the world. The scientist are particulary concerned about children and they estimate that if kids will keep getting fat as fast as now, they will die even before their parents.

I'm sure that many of you at least once tried to be on a diet. Did it really work? Did your body stayed slim for long? Why the diets don't always work?

When you go on a diet your brain gets a message: „There will be no energy delivery! You have to get ready to survive! Red alert!” And you know that the brain controls the whole body. Is it possible that your brain gets wrong messages, that it is manipulated, that it sends you no message if you are full or still hungry?

The study by Achim Peters shows that it's also the stress that makes us fat. When we are stressed, in our body are produced some hormons that make us eat more. But stress might be caused not only by a situation in our life, the cause might be in food that we eat. Robert Lustig says that the industrial food and so-called 'Western diet' are killing us. Nowadays no one cares if we can digest easily the product or if it is good for us. The most important for the producers is that it survives the transport, it's cheap and non-perishable. And to make it so, it has to contain some chemical aid – preservatives and/or artificial additives. And they are the factor that makes our brain confused and we get overweight.

Based on: Hans-Ulrich Grimm, Die Kalorienlüge: Wie uns die Nahrungsindustrie dick macht, Knaur Taschenbuch Verlag, München, 2007, p. 16-26.

New focus point on my blog

Hello everyone!

This semester I decided to write you about something that I'm interested in. FOOD! :D

But it's not going to by as simple as you think. I will write you about problems with our new factory-fresh industrial foods.

Get ready to learn some things and have fun!