Name: Why calories count
ISBN: 9780520262881

Why calories count

"Calories--too few or too many--are the source of health problems affecting billions of people in today's globalized world. Although calories are essential to human health and survival, they cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted. They are also hard to understand. In Why Calories Count, Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim explain in clear and accessible language what calories are and how they work, both biologically and politically. As they take readers through the issues that are fundamental to our understanding of diet and food, weight gain, loss, and obesity, Nestle and Nesheim sort through a great deal of the misinformation put forth by food manufacturers and diet program promoters. They elucidate the political stakes and show how federal and corporate policies have come together to create an "eat more" environment. Finally, having armed readers with the necessary information to interpret food labels, evaluate diet claims, and understand evidence as presented in popular media, the authors offer some candid advice: Get organized. Eat less. Eat better. Move more. Get political"--Provided by publisher.

What Hacker News says

EamonnMRMar 2019

While we're recommending food books, check this one out:

Why Calories Count by Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Calories-Count-Politics-Californi...

thread

sliverstormAug 2015

Improving the accuracy of the label is a good goal, but from your own link:

Some researchers say that, on the whole, the inaccuracies in calorie estimates don't make a big difference. "For most uses, I think they're good enough," said Malden Nesheim, professor of nutrition emeritus at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., and co-author of the book "Why Calories Count" (University of California Press, 2012).

People tend to eat a variety of foods, not just almonds or starches. So overestimating or underestimating the calories in one particular food will likely not have a huge impact on a person's daily calorie intake, Nesheim said.

And generally, the omissions in the Atwater system tend to result in overestimates, meaning they likely wouldn't interfere with weight loss.

"It would only be a problem for people who want to gain weight," said Mary Ellen Camire, a professor at the University of Maine's Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition in Orono.

thread