Has anyone listened to the latest one about calories? I mean, I know calories are a pretty garbage measure, but I didn’t know some of the specific WAYS in which they are garbage.
Like I thought the 2000 calorie a day thing was probably geared to men, because most things are (you know, airbags and whatnot). But to find out that it’s less than most women need! And that the oft-repeated calorie counts for fat, carbs, and protein are based on junk science from over a hundred years ago… wow.
I listened to it! I thought it was amazing how they found some of the things even they had assumed were based in more modern science were really not up to scratch, but the way 2000 calories was just a number pulled because it was easy for people to calculate with…?
I just listened to this episode on my road trip today! I was also really surprised by all of these facts that I held to be hard and fast and proven by science were just kind of…junk. Rounding 2300 calories down to 2000 because it’s easier and to keep people from eating more than 2300 (assuming everyone eats a little extra) was just…wow. Also the calorie counts for macros are also basically junk which really surprised me, seeing as I spent an entire 4 year college degree learning these “facts” to “help” people with diet/exercise.
I remember coming across the macro I formation a few times, but super interest I g to listen to the calories etc. typ9 under kid
Excited to listen to this one! Wow!
Yeah, the rounding down to 2000 calories just to make it more user-friendly was jaw-dropping information. I’ve been thinking about it the last couple of days. I have no idea how many calories I eat in a day, honestly, because I HATE tracking anything so I never could do it even back when I tried to diet. Now I feel a little vindicated in my refusal to learn that bullshit since guess what, it’s all bullshit!
As someone who tried to gain weight with the help of people who had training similar to you, I’m glad we made any progress at all? I used a tracker to try to eat an appropriate minimum amount when my body has been assisting me doing so, and, uh, it clearly still wasn’t enough but also there’s apparently no way of knowing what IS enough because my body is a complex ecosystem. Which i knew, but also what a nuisance that when the foundations are so shaky.
A lot of times with stuff like this, I try to find out what we used to know before science went and messed it up! But that doesn’t always work well enough either.
I listened last night and this episode was mind blowing. Like should absolutely be required listening for everyone everywhere mind blowing. The calorie stuff per nutrient I thought was just a little off - like an oops we know better. Not it’s basically founded on lies and nothing. Ughhh poop is like dead cells and bacteria and stuff. When I do colonoscopy prep I run clear and then I don’t because my body has other stuff going on!
Surviving a 6 day fast is a thing lots of people do for reasons. Surviving a 6 day binge drink I absolutely couldn’t do.
I heard Guinness was invented by fasting monks. I guess they drank beer instead of water, and they didn’t like how hungry they got, so they invented a really filling beer. But I digress.
I agree, it was really mind blowing. The gap between our knowledge and how confidently these things are bandied about…
This latest episode was great! I’m sooo glad they tackled calories and especially the 2,000 a day which just will not fucking die, lol. I came across that info through reading about the advent of food packaging but it’s still used so often. It’s fascinating how long it takes to get an incorrect idea out of the population, isn’t it? I had no idea about how they actually determine the caloric content of a “food object” or whatever they called it (ew, lol), but I remember reading years ago about how silly calorie trackers are because even the caloric difference between two carrots grown in the exact same field can vary wildly.
I also feel like they’re getting warmer when it comes to discussing institutions of science and how they are not separate objective entities from the whims of society/individuals involved in them at the time. Like so much of the falsehood stuff they debunk isn’t crackpot, it’s from the most prestigious higher institutes of learning/academia/government/science. It scares me how trusting so many people are of “science” or “data” or “studies” as if its source is this infallible omniscient party. And how quick people are to flay anyone who “doesn’t believe in science” and it’s like…not believing in the infallibility of scientific organizations isn’t the same as literally not believing in science. And I frankly totally understand why so many people are untrusting of so many different scientific claims…like they aren’t morons, lol, it makes sense to be skeptical if you know the track record.
I really hope they keep walking down that route because it’s true across the board if you look into medical science and I’m sure many other areas as well. Also the newness! We are in the nascent age of even understanding how bodies work and it’s very difficult for people to grasp that against the backdrop of so much other fabulous technological and social advancement. Like we can go to space and implant embryos but we don’t actually understand what specifically makes a carrot good for us, lol.
I hope they keep going and branching out! What are topics people here wish they would cover? I’d like one on the founding of the FDA. And vitamins/supplements too.
ETA: Oh, another thought I had while listening. I wonder if some of the drive for promoting “calories in calories out” (other than general fatphobia/diet culture) stems from the food industry. Because that really serves them. If you believe it’s just calories in calories out then eating a bowl of lucky charms is just as good as scrambled eggs or oats or really anything else. The quality and makeup is irrelevant, because we are just human robots ingesting fuel. Seems tied to the idea that our bodies are separate from us too, and the western view of seeing each body system as distinct and not impacting other systems, but just like, separate parts. One thing I like so much about this podcast is they don’t use that type of detached (and IMO dehumanizing) “bodies” language very often.
Listening to latest episode now! Apparently in the UK they are making it a law that restaurants must write calorie counts for each item on the menu??? So ridiculous. I don’t get why that would possibly be a government issue. Apparently some states in the US have that already (oregon and california, I think they said?). It just seems like…the government shouldn’t be so involved in people’s “health”? Like their track record is horrendous so far? IDK. Excited to hear what they say and what others think on this.
Yeah there’s a bunch of similar measures being pushed through at the moment (there’s a big furore because some proposed taxes on particularly sugary and fatty foods have been postponed due to the cost of living crisis and some people have opinions on that). I would say that the possibly a contributing factor to the government trying to interfere in people’s health (leaving aside entirely my opinion on whether this I think this is the right way to do it) is that they reckon preventative measures can save the NHS money long term, and there’s definitely a bit of a narrative that I’ve seen around things like “if you keep smoking, you’ll cost the NHS x million pounds over your life”, where I can see them trying to do a similar thing here.
That’s required of larger chain restaurants in the US too right? I always get so excited when they drop a new episode. I am guaranteed to learn something.
it’s a really interesting episode because aubrey shows that the data is not there to even suggest that calorie count displays make any difference, whereas stopping smoking does make a demonstrable difference.
the idea that calorie count measures make a difference relies on several cascading assumptions:
all of these assumptions feel true, but they aren’t!
Could calorie counts be helpful in the other direction? I’m broke and really hungry, I want to maximize my calories per dollar? I think stuff like fat and protein content would be most helpful tho
that makes sense – tho i’m pretty sure that’s not the intention behind them. my sense is that they are probably harmful to people who have or have had eating disorders. aubrey also tells a story about someone hassling her (a fat lady) and pointing to lower-calorie choices on the chipotle menu that made me want to burn things down, esp when “human calorie science” seems to be largely made up anyway.
Hahaha, I guess we already have calorie counts on menus! Think it’s a good sign that I didn’t even know that or notice? LOL. I liked how at the end they said, “it makes people feel either nothing, or terrible”.
I also thought they did a great job showing how unscientific all of this is, and how both government and media still tout “data” about it being successful. Plus all the goal shifting and then pretending like it’s what was intentional the whole time, etc. And apparently that’s why the UK followed suit! Because of the “data” that it was super successful here.
Oh and I thought the most convincing part was that even if this worked, like even if calorie counts on menus made people eat fewer calories, and even if that resulted in weight loss…it would be like 2 pounds a year or something ridiculous. Like even using their own debunked theories it still doesn’t bear out. But science! Data!!!
at my last job i would get so many complaints that this integration i was working on “didn’t work” or “wasn’t good” and as a conscientious product manager of course i asked for more details on the specific issues they were experiencing and there were never any!! no details! only vague feelings of disease not based on reality!!
and i wept and continue to weep because even those of us who should know better (because we are engineers or educated or whatever) operate out of feelings and not facts like 95% of the time. even people i love! even me, sometimes!! i hate this for us!!! 
Hahahaha, this made me laugh so hard. Totally agree.
I just listened to the calories episode part 1. It’s the first episode from this podcast I’ve tried in a few years! I was expecting the science to be junky but … not that junky??? What the heck!
I can’t believe that we literally light the food on fire. I always assumed that we had some kind of neat way to measure, like, metabolically available energy because doing otherwise would obviously make no sense. What the hecking heck.