I've been thinking about this and just wanted to add:

The problem with me eating "those" foods - the non-nutritious foods that is, is that there is no way on earth I COULD/WOULD stay within my calorie allotment. I would overeat and if I'm overeating and overspending my calorie allotment - well enough said.

Calories are not equal. When I'm faced with preparing a meal, I always choose something to get "more bang for my buck." I'd much rather eat a huge plate of something low fat and nutritious. It fills me up, stays with me longer and doesn't make me later wish I hadn't eaten it.

I don't believe that calories are equal. I think our bodies run much more efficiently when given the proper balance of nutrition. I think that if your diet is seriously lacking in macro and micro-nutrients then your body is going to hold on to what it can to try and "survive."

I also don't believe that there is a set formula nutrient wise that works for everyone. Personally I do well on lots complex carbs, moderate protein (15%), and moderate to high fat (over 30% of good ones.) I can't do low-fat! It just doesn't work for my body. Others do well on lower fat diets or on higher protein diets. You need to tweak to find what works for you. I guess what I'm saying is that, not only are calories not created equal our bodies are not created equal.

The more I think about this question, the more complicated it gets!

We're asking if all calories are created equal. The question is...for what?

For short-term weight loss? For SUSTAINABLE weight loss? For nutritional benefits? To fuel the brain? To fuel the muscles? To fuel a marathon tomorrow? To build muscle? For short term general health and well-being? For long-term general health and well being?

My answer changes depending on what those calories are supposed to be "good" for. I think you have to determine which of those goals is most important to you, and how the calories you eat influence that goal or combination of goals, to determine whether the calories from two different foods are "equal" to you.

Well, technically - to go back to the science - all calories are created equal. It's the foods that carry the calories that are not equal.

I totally agree that for me, how I spend my calories of food does matter! I noticed this the other day when during a weak moment when I was hungry I ate a candy bar that was over 200 calories. It was like I hadn't eaten anything. My body just didn't register that I'd given it 200 calories of fuel. I wasn't full, I surely wasn't satisfied. I ended up going on home and eating my planned dinner - which was about 400 calories of much more nutritious "real" food. Then I was satisfied. Made me mad of course that I'd given in, and I've made a note to remember this incident when I get tempted by those candy bars in the grocery checkout. We do have the candy-free ones, but it wasn't open (not that that's an excuse - just warding off that advice). And I don't usually give in either .... (it didn't even taste that good when all is said and done)

I agree with this and what's been said. Calories are only a part of nutrition, they are a source of energy. A calorie is a calorie and they are are the same in the sence of being a source of energy. But nutrition is far more important. When you want to be nutritious and healthy you start to take in account for the other factors of food - carbs, protein, fiber, etc. When you have the right balance you get more energy from those calories.

Excellent.

Also, all calories (calories eaten, that is) aren't created equal if they have a different effect on the calories burned side of the equation. That is, if they type of calorie affects your metabolism. And that is an area where more and more is being learned these days.

I fall on the scientific side in that all calories are equal.

However, making sure that I get a good balance of nutritious food is important. Making sure that I get a variety of foods helps me stick within the calorie levels that I have chosen. I tend towards higher protein levels to keep hunger levels at a minimum. I break up meals for the same reason. To me that's a strategy, but in the end it's the calories that count. I say that because I originally gained weight eating less nutritious choices, however, after an illness I regained weight simply eating too much of healthier choices.

On the concept of bang for your buck though - all of the following are 100 calories (yes, that's the same plate):

OK, I'll bite - what is that on the second plate???

Looks like four of those gummie's covered in sugar you can get at check out.

Huh. I've never seen those.

Don't be sad For some of us, the "never eat" calories are never eat more because of being triggers than being afraid of 200 or 300 "non-nutritious" calories. If I have those couple hundred calories available at the end of the day and decide I'm going to have a "store bought" cookie - guess what happens? That couple hundred is gonna turn into 1000 in about half an hour For me anyway, it's just sooooo much easier to never take the first bite than it is to spend the rest of the evening fighting and arguing with myself while the rest of those cookies are whispering irresistible come-ons in my ear.

I do think this can be a very complicated question but, for me, where the calories come from are more important than the number of calories themselves. If I eat 1500-1600 calories a day of donuts and fast food (even if I'm taking a multi-vitamin) I'm big as a house, lethargic, mentally foggy, depressed and just plain miserable. 1500-1600 calories of fruits, veggies, nuts, fish (well, you know) and I'm not only never feeling hungry but I'm losing weight and feeling alert. By the same token, if I have a particularly busy day and miss a snack or two so my total calories drop to 1200 or 1300, if it's all been the "clean" stuff, it doesn't phase me a bit - no unbearable cravings or major fatigue. Whereas, if I tried to go all day on 2 slices of greasy pizza, I'd barely be able to crawl through the door, grab a bag of chips, and flop on the couch after work.

Sorry, I should have put captions. The middle plate is some peach fruit candy that my mother had in the house when I took the pictures. I only used them because they had a calories per gram sticker on the bottom of the container. The one on the right was soy nuts.

This contains a rather disgusting example, so if you're squeamish be warned:

One of the faults in the reasoning of a calorie is a calorie for metabolism, is that the body is not like a furnace. A calorie (unit of heat) is in essence a measure of "burnability." There's no evidence (in fact, there's quite a bit of evidence to the contrary) that the food we eat is entirely consumed by the body (as it would be in a fire). It's possible for some undigested food to pass through the digestive tract. While it's not very nice to think about, some animals so poorly digest their food, that other animals eat the poop of those animals (or pick through it to find the digestible bits). If a chicken eats corn from the poop of a cow - which animal got which percentage of the corn's calories?

Wood is burnable, and therefore has calories, but people can't digest wood, so if you swallow wood or sawdust, it's going to come out the other side, completely intact and still burnable (with all of it's calories still in it). But, aside from that, are there instances in which a person's digestion may be less efficient? I'm not sure that anyone has studied that (it would be a rather unpleasant experiment, I would think to try and calculate how much food a person passes incompletely digested).

Science is a little iffy on how much of our food we burn, and how much is passed undigested, and whether it varies from food to food or person to person. Also if certain foods change the thermostat of the furnace, that too may play a role in a calorie sometimes not always being a calorie.

Colleen ... all I gotta say here is ... can I be you when I grow up???

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