As we have said many times, we do not focus on calories and certainly do not advocate counting calories. We encourage intuitive eating, that is, eating when hungry and eating foods that nourish our bodies, rather than obsessing over calories. This has the propensity to foster an unhealthy relationship with food.
We are not saying to ignore calories completely, however they are certainly not the whole picture when looking to achieve / maintain optimal weight. For us, the key is nutrient density. That is, calorie quality, not quantity.
To demonstrate this, we have compared the calories in a fresh organic juice and the same quantity of soft drink, as shown in the table below.
We have included commercial products for ease of comparison.
It can be seen from this table that calories are not dissimilar, and it would not be difficult to make a juice with very close to identical calories.
If diet planning focuses primarily on calories, as many do, it is not hard to see how we could quickly become very malnourished whilst simultaneously increasing our toxic load. It is the ways in which the calories support the biochemical processes in the body, and therefore the quality, rather than quantity of the calories and macronutrients that is most important.
This is very brief insight into a complex topic – we will be sharing more information soon. In the meantime you may be interested to read our article The Limitations of Nutritional Panels which examines current requirements for food labelling and where they can fall short.
