What the H is a Calorie?

Okay, I am closer to age 60 than I like to admit but there is one thing I never really got and that is, "what is a calorie?"  This question was asked of people in the film "Supersize Me" and those interviewed on camera could not define a calorie.  Indeed it was finally defined by renowned nutritionist and food scientist Marion Nestle in the film after the "people on the street" could not do it.  Nestle defined it as "the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of a quart of water by 1 degree centigrade."  Say again?!  That definition left me clueless.

But now Nestle has a new book out entitled, "Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics" that she co-wrote with Malden Nesheim and it is an excellent primer on the history of the science concerning calories.  The chapters are short and concise making it easier to digest (pun intended) the information on calories.

Did you know that the concept of a calorie was written about by the Greek physician Hippocrates around 400 B.C. especially as it relates to the secret of health, which is to balance diet and activity?  Hippocrates reasoned that was a way to forestall illness and have a healthy life.  I know the answer to this question but one can only wonder why such sage advice prevented the epidemic of Type II diabetes and obesity we have today because so many cannot live their lives according to this simple hypothesis.

Then there is the example of Santorio Sanctorious who in the 1600's built a contraption to be the first one to study human genetics with respect to the use of energy in the body (tied of course to the definition of calories).  Although some say he made of OC disorder, he took the initiative to weigh himself, weigh everything he ate and drank, and everything he produced in urine and feces nearly every day for thirty years.  From this dogged research he noticed the effects on how is body weight was effected by the foods he ate and the resulting waste excretions.  He attributed this to "insensible perspiration" but little did he know at the time he was discovering what we now know about calories.

I highly recommend this book to culinary educators as a summer read.  It is really a fascinating journey into the ancient and modern science of the research on calories and written in a manner that allowed me to comprehend and apply the concept to my diet and the way I will teach the restaurant management class in the fall when we discuss the calorie count in each dish we serve the public.

As a result of reading only the first half of this book I know longer think of calories as a bad thing, I think of them in terms of how I can use food and drink to power my body to do what I need to do every day which is get out of bed and be a vibrant teacher, and climb on my bike or work out in the gym to fend off the aging process.  Perhaps you too will understand "calories" and pass it along to your students for their professional and personal use.