If there is only one thing I leave behind when I die that people remember, I want them to remember this: YOU CANNOT EAT CALORIES!!! Calories are a measurement of heat, it is the steam that expires from food, the temperature of heat of tissues. You cannot eat steam. If I hear another person tell me that they eat so many calories a day, or that they can eat a certain food because… it only has so many calories, I am going to explode. Calories should only be spoken in terms of how much energy the body releases. Knowing how many calories the tissues burn will make it easier to feed the burn with the correct amount of NUTRIENTS! Even medical doctors tell there patients to eat more or less calories. What medical doctors and nutritionists should be telling their patients and clients is to eat the right amount of NUTRIENT dense foods to match the energy output of the tissues. I have been defending the nutrient concept for thirty years and will continue to do so until my final day on earth. Maybe someday the thinking will change and someone might say hmmm! maybe Daryl was right after all. Ask someone how many nutrients they need to take in on a daily basis and they wont’ be able to answer you, ask them how many calorie they eat per day and they will tell you. This is the wrong way of thinking about nutrition, and I want to change it.
Daryl Conant, M.Ed.