#8814 - 10/23/00 09:10 AM
About regimens...
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old hand
Registered: 03/16/00
Posts: 1004
Loc: London, UK
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This is probably more a general knowledge than a language knowledge question, but can anybody tell me what the phrase 'empty calories' is supposed to mean? And does it, at all, have any substantive meaning?
I ask this because, as far as I am aware, a calorie is a calorie - a capacity to do work, a unit of energy. If it is empty, what is it empty of? Not energy, for sure. If it is not empty, what is it that we expect to fill it? Water? Crystals? The Holy Spirirt?
Nonplussed-and-perplexed-about-'diets' in London
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#8815 - 10/23/00 09:37 AM
Re: About regimens...
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member
Registered: 10/09/00
Posts: 197
Loc: cary, nc, usa
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>>can anybody tell me what the phrase 'empty calories' is supposed to mean
Simple sugars or fats that don't provide any nutritional value would be empty calories. Protiens or complex carbohydrates would be the prefered (full?) calories.
>> a calorie is a calorie
Yes, this is true. The issue is how your body uses the calorie. (store it or burn it)
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#8816 - 10/23/00 09:40 AM
Re: About regimens...
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 03/22/00
Posts: 1981
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>empty calories
I wonder if it relates to either:
(i) Foods like celery which are said to use more calories in eating and digesting than they contain.
(ii) Foods like sweets which provide calories but do not make any other useful contribution to the diet, eg fibre, vitamins, protein.
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#8818 - 10/24/00 01:38 AM
Re: empty calories
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old hand
Registered: 03/15/00
Posts: 1010
Loc: Switzerland
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>do not make any other useful contribution to the diet, eg fibre, vitamins, protein.<
This is correct, one should add "mineral salts and trace elements". At the beginning though, the term had a more "vitalistic" pitch, referring generally to highly refined foodstuffs. It has gone a bit out of fashion, after the "fun aspect" of eating has come to the fore again, and children cram themselves with sweets...
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#8821 - 10/25/00 04:39 AM
Re: About regimens...
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 08/23/00
Posts: 2204
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I believe that it is the vitamins and iron that are the basis of Guinesses old claim that it "is good for you." Certainly our family doctor on Northampton recommended Guiness as a painless antidote to mild anaemia.
I did wonder why he hadn't recommended Mild, but decided not to be Bitter about it. The main problem, we found, was that Guiness makes you so Stout that you need a Porter for your luggage, even when it isn't Lager than you used to be able to carry.
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#8822 - 10/25/00 04:45 AM
Re: empty calories
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 03/22/00
Posts: 1981
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I understand that chocolate has many virtues. The dentist told me that it had fluoride and wasn't as bad for teeth as chewy sticky things. It lifts the spirits too.
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