Calorie counting and label reading basics

What you need to know to start counting those calories.

Calories in food come from the macro nutrients in that food. Those are carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

1 gram of carbohydrates releases 4 calories. 1 gram of protein also releases 4 calories. 1 gram of fat releases whopping 9 calories. This is one of the main reasons why in commercial advertising fats have a very bad reputation. However remember fats coming from natural sources are essential and are very HEALTHY. Essential fatty acids are ESSENTIAL!

So say you have a food. Wholewheat pasta. The label says the following things.

Nutritional values per 100g:

Carbohydrates: 67g

Protein: 7g

Fats: 3g

This means 67x4 are the calories coming from carbohydrates, the total is 268, 7x4 are the calories coming from protein, the total is 28.Finally the calories coming from fat are 3x9 which is 27.

When you add those together you get the total calories from a food 268+29+27=324 per 100 grams of it.

Labels may also be displaying extra information like calories from sugar and starch.

It becomes confusing is when it is not clear whether the values shown are for raw, or cooked product.Also when it's a whole meal containing different things like the sauce, the meat and whatever else. I suggest you don't just check the labels and also check your favorite food against this nutrition database.

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