Count Your Calories: How Food Values Are Calculated

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 17, 30 January 1948, Page 3

Count Your Calories: How Food Values Are Calculated

A calorie is a unit of heat (the amount of heat need to raise 1 litre of water 1 degree Centigrade). When food is burned in the body it is transformed into energy, and as this cannot be easily measured science uses the Calorie as a unit to express the energy values of various foodstuffs.

The human body requires a more or less fixed amount (basal requirement) to keep it going, and in addition to this, an amount proportionate to our daily requirements, as it is obvious that different jobs require different quantities of energy. Children, by the way, require relatively more Calories than adults, as they are growing and use up more heat. It is estimated that both boys and girls from 13 years onwards require as much food as an adult man. A man weighing 11 st. doing an average day’s work requires about 3,300 Calories per day. Men on active service 4,000. Manual labourers 4,000. Clerical workers 2,400. Patients in bed need at least 1,800 per day. As for the ladies, “washing day” requires 3,000 Calories. Ordinary household duties 2,500. Teachers 2,200. Inactive women (patients) 1,800. From the following table the Calorie value of any given food can be calculated: — One gramme of fat (30 grammes equals approx, loz.) contains 9.3 Calories. Fat is contained in butter, lard, suet, cheese, yolk of eggs, oils and nuts. Carbohydrate: I gramme equals 4.0 Calories. It is contained in sugar, fruits, honey, bread, potatoes, and vegetables. Protein: 1 gramme equals- 4.0 Calories. Contained in fish, fowl, meat, eggs, milk and cheese. All that you have to do now is to see which grade your job comes into and note the number of Calories you need. Make an estimate of the amount of each, item of food you eat at every meal during one day. You have then only to refer to the above table of food values and by simple arithmetic you can ascertain if you are supplying your body with sufficient fuel for the amount of energy you need.