Why Is Energy Density of Foods Important?

For an effective weight loss, you should cut the calorie intake while controlling your hunger. Gaining and keeping up a healthy weight is a challenge. If you want to maintain your body weight, you should sustain a balance between calorie intake and energy expenditure. A person must eat lesser calories compared to expenditure in order to reduce the body weight.


Most people limit certain foods, portion size, or some nutrients like fats or carbohydrates to gain a healthy weight. However, these options have some restrictions, which limit their plan for a short period. These methods may reduce the quality of diet, or lead to dissatisfaction and hunger. Therefore, they may not be sustainable, acceptable, and effective for a long period.

Limiting calorie intake while eating more is a good approach to cut or keep up the body weight. How can you do that? You can consume a large amount of foods, which consist of a lesser amount of calories. Here comes the concept of ‘energy density’.


Energy density of foods

Energy density is known as the number of calories (energy) in a specific weight of food. Usually, it is shown as the amount of calories in a gram (kcal/g). If a person consumes foods with lower-energy density, he or she receives a lesser amount of calories per gram compared to an individual, who consumes foods with higher-energy density. For a same amount of energy, he or she can consume a large amount of foods with lower-energy density than foods with higher-energy density.

For example,

A 100 g of raw apples with skin contains 52 calories. Therefore, energy density is 0.52 kcal/g.

A 100 g of chocolate ice cream consists of 216 calories. Its energy density is 2.16 kcal/g.

If a person consumes a 100 g of chocolate ice cream, he or she gets about four times higher energy than an individual, who eats a same amount of raw apple.


Energy density and composition of foods

Water and fibre lower the energy density of your diet because, they have a relatively low or no energy density. Fat (9 kcal/g) is the most energy dense nutrient than carbohydrates and proteins (4 kcal/g). If you want to lose your body weight, you should have foods high in water and dietary fibre, or low in fat. Increasing the amount of water also reduces energy density of the diet.


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