Eli5 How can some bread or nuts contain the same amount of kcal per 100g as some candy?
In: Biology
Calories come from protein (4 kcal/gram) carbs (4kcal/gram) and fat (9kcal/gram) (also alcohol, but that’s not important right now).
Bread is mostly carbohydrates with a little bit of protein, which means it should have similar calories (per gram) as candy, which is mostly sugar (sugar = carbs).
Nuts often have more calories, because they have high fat content.
It’s also worth noting that one of the main reasons that fruits and vegetables are lower calories (for the same serving size) is because they usually have high water content, and water has 0 calories. Grapes have 0.62 kcal per gram of your serving… but if you take out the water and have raisins instead, you’re at 3kcal per gram, which is almost the same as pure sugar (4kcal/gram).
In the case of bread, you may be making the same mistake as people who are asked “Which weighs more, 100 lb of feathers or 100 lb of bowling balls?” and answer “bowling balls.” 100 grams of bread is a much larger portion than 100 grams of candy because bread is much less dense.
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