Calories per Ounce: what's the highest you've found?

[MuddyWaters]

Our bloodstream only holds 5 grams of glucose. What do you think happens to the other hundreds of grams of carbs/sugar when you pig out on cereal or bread? It is stored as fat cells, including those in your liver.

You ommitted the bodys main fuel source, glycogen stored in muscles.
You get fat......if you consume more calories than what you requires.
Always
At a micro time level, and at a macro one.
In-out=accumulation. Its an energy balance.
Despite what many want to believe, it doesnt matter what it is you eat.
No magic, just math.

Some foods are more efficienty converted to stored fuel
Some are less
Some are better as instant fuel for performance as they are absorbed
Some fuel sources may be better suited to different activity


That doesnt change fact. Just makes it fuzzy for some to think about. Those are performance issues. Body can convert fat stores slower than demand, you hit the wall. Barely able to walk.

Look at big picture
Energy balance still controls
Body is constantly storing energy and drawing on stores
24 hrs, 7 days

It has to, its a law of nature, Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes forms.

A lttle cardio per day to keep metabolism high, dont consume more cal than needed, and you can eat anything you want, when you want, and have low body fat. Restraint is the key, which most have none.

Hikers burning 4500 cal per day dont get fat

[CamelMan]

Pfft...most hikers are at a 2 to 3 thousand calorie deficit while hiking. I don't think any carbs are going to be stored as fat.

No, they won't.

Malto makes a good point. Use your fat for its intended purpose.

[Malto]

The remark below by Malto is completely wrong. You need to so some reading... Fat follows a different metabolic pathway than carbs, which spike your insulin (the fat storage hormone) and prevent you from burning fat. Read Taubes "Why we get fat and what to do about it", Teicholz "The big fat surprise", for starters. Why do you think there is an obesity epidemic starting in 1977 when we were all advised to shun fat and eat carbs and the low-fat craze began?

Our bloodstream only holds 5 grams of glucose. What do you think happens to the other hundreds of grams of carbs/sugar when you pig out on cereal or bread? It is stored as fat cells, including those in your liver.

Reality is that fat from real food is an excellent for you, and there is no real need to eat a high-carb diet. Protein can stay low to moderate.
Man, I thought the word was out about this, but it appears that people have had their heads in the sand. They probably weigh 300 lbs by now if they are carb loading.

you have single digit body fat, you are better off from a weight perspective, cutting the fat out and just taking the carb and protein portion

MUddywaters did a great job saving me the time of writing a comprehensive response. Here is some good info on fueling (mixed with some self serving marketing hype) somewhere on Hammers site they deal with a number of topics related to fueling. http://www.hammernutrition.com/downloads/SOS.pdf

finally, to your final paragraph. There is a huge difference between how the body reacts to food while sitting on the couch vs. constant expenditure of energy. THose of us with our heads out of sand realize this. .

[HooKooDooKu]

Sort of inline with nuts is sunflower seed kernels. They have a slightly higher calorie count than peanuts. WalMart sells large bags of them. I found the salted ones to be too salty, and the plain ones to be too plain. But buy a bag of each and mix them and their just about right.

[QiWiz]

Macadamia nuts that I have in 1 oz packs are listed as having 200 calories per ounce, which is about the same as 100% oil. They are a nut with a very high fat content. I've been able to find several flavors of these, come from Hawaii.

[Spiffyguy]

My best is Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Granola Bar (Peanut) at 154 cals/oz. Close second is Ritz Cheese Sandwich Crackers at 143. I keep meaning to weigh all my stuff to update my list but I usually just stuff food in the bag on a weekend hike.

[Dogwood]

Macadamia nuts that I have in 1 oz packs are listed as having 200 calories per ounce, which is about the same as 100% oil. They are a nut with a very high fat content. I've been able to find several flavors of these, come from Hawaii.

Getting off topic, not sure if this applies to your statement "macadamia nuts that I have...come from Hawaii" but all macs don't come from HI. Even those labeled Mauna Loa macadamia nuts don't always come from HI. It has been found that cheaper macs coming from Australia have been packaged under the Mauna Loa macadamia nut brand implying on the labeling that they were grown in HI.

[CamelMan]

Hammers

I like their gels, they're the lowest in sodium.

[HeatherNC]

Funny, I actually think Boone Barrs taste terrible (seriously, I have to shove them down), but I've been eating them with Justin's peanut butter or almond butter (the vanilla almond butter is great) and this makes for a palatable 500-calorie 'lunch'.

[rafe]

It's not all about calories. Your body takes a beating hiking day after day. You need protein to maintain and rebuild bones and muscle mass. You need fiber and greens, etc. If it were all about calories per ounce, we'd hike with a bag of sugar and a big bottle of olive oil and call it done.

[Venchka]

Funny, I actually think Boone Barrs taste terrible (seriously, I have to shove them down), but I've been eating them with Justin's peanut butter or almond butter (the vanilla almond butter is great) and this makes for a palatable 500-calorie 'lunch'.

Thanks. I don't find them terrible. I'll smear them with nut butters.
Going to load up on them next week and live on them later this year in the Rockies.

Wayne

[garlic08]

It's not all about calories. Your body takes a beating hiking day after day. You need protein to maintain and rebuild bones and muscle mass. You need fiber and greens, etc. If it were all about calories per ounce, we'd hike with a bag of sugar and a big bottle of olive oil and call it done.

Amen to this. An obese packsniffer once tried to explain to me why I shouldn't carry fresh vegetables when I hike. He obviously didn't get it.

I don't think we really understand how the body works. Modern nutritional science sure hasn't helped, if you look at the declining diet-related health statistics over my lifetime. When I was in elementary school, there was only one fat kid and nobody had diabetes or allergies. (I'm not knocking modern medicine, since hospitals have likely saved my life with surgery more than once!)

[Connie]

I added the calorie dense food list to my website, only to help people achieve more calories: fats top that list. Sugar is far down the list, for calories per ounce.

I choose the healthy fats as add-ons getting minimum heat, in fact, so they are not ruined by heat.

I also have human dietary fiber: 1/4 C red or black raspberries, 1/2 C pears, 1/2 C Hubbard-type winter squash.

I take freeze-dried raspberries, sliced honeyed-dried pears, and I add not too much dried squash slices if I am out a long time.

The so-called high fiber food products, are not, or, need 10-12 servings to reach the zone for recommended human dietary fiber, and 10-12 servings makes no sense at all at home or in a backpack.

I don't think we really understand how the body works. Modern nutritional science sure hasn't helped, if you look at the declining diet-related health statistics over my lifetime. When I was in elementary school, there was only one fat kid and nobody had diabetes or allergies. (I'm not knocking modern medicine, since hospitals have likely saved my life with surgery more than once!)

I think the food merchandisers are the problem: they add ingredients no one needs.

I also only saw one fat kid, while growing up, and I didn't know anyone that had diabetes.

The fresh foods offerred in most stores have almost no nutritional variety, as well, because they are GMO's that are different parts of the same plant given another name.

It isn't easy to achieve robust health or healthy food choices from the average grocery store.

We are physically active people, and the outdoors only adds to our need for really good food intake.

[Venchka]

I was the fat kid. Then one summer I grew 6" and lost 10 pounds.
More recently I lost 40 pounds, + or -, and kept it off. It's easy.

Wayne


Sent from somewhere around here.

[CamelMan]

It isn't easy to achieve robust health or healthy food choices from the average grocery store.

It's pretty easy if you stick to the produce aisle, and the beans and grains. In exchange for the health, and being able to eat any quantity you desire, you are forced to cook most of your own food. There is also an induction period when one needs to lose one's taste for processed garbage, because we are living like fed bears in a "toxic food environment." Not only can I eat well at any grocery store, a grocery store is the only place where I can eat well.

When I first moved to G'burg, I weighed around 250 pounds (BMI ~33). Now, I don't. And my lipid numbers are the best they've ever been. (And that's not the first time I've done this, so it's not the hiking. You can out-eat your exercise without much of a problem--people on the AT are a special case.) The problem is the lack of whole, natural food as close to unprocessed as possible. Otherwise, it becomes calorie dense and unhealthy. It's made to feed you fat and salt so you keep coming back for more.

[RockDoc]

The toxic food environment includes beans and grains, which contain antigens and GMO issues (read Wheat Belly). Grains are what you feed a small calf to quickly make it an obese steer, and the same thing happens to people if you are insulin resistant as most of us clearly are. They are best avoided (in this case, moderation does not apply). Humans did not develop eating grains and legumes, it is too new for many of us to digest properly.

Carbs (sugar and GMO grains) and industrial seed oils are the darlings of the toxic food environment. Much processed food consists of only three grains, corn, soy, and wheat, mixed with sugar and seed oils. Natural fats from plants and animals are not to blame, it's the bastardized seed oil fats that will cause health problems. I hope that I have clarified the previous misleading post.

[RabbitHole]

The toxic food environment includes beans and grains, which contain antigens and GMO issues (read Wheat Belly). Grains are what you feed a small calf to quickly make it an obese steer, and the same thing happens to people if you are insulin resistant as most of us clearly are. They are best avoided (in this case, moderation does not apply). Humans did not develop eating grains and legumes, it is too new for many of us to digest properly.

Carbs (sugar and GMO grains) and industrial seed oils are the darlings of the toxic food environment. Much processed food consists of only three grains, corn, soy, and wheat, mixed with sugar and seed oils. Natural fats from plants and animals are not to blame, it's the bastardized seed oil fats that will cause health problems. I hope that I have clarified the previous misleading post.

Plants and dogs have been GMO'd for thousands of years. Look up what corn looked like before the Mayans began genetically modifying it. 90% of scientists say it poses no credible risk to health. Just my two cents. If you believe in climate change and use the 98% of scientists agree argument you should try doing some reading in scientific journals on GMOs. HYOH

[CamelMan]

The toxic food environment includes beans and grains, which contain antigens and GMO issues (read Wheat Belly). Grains are what you feed a small calf to quickly make it an obese steer, and the same thing happens to people if you are insulin resistant as most of us clearly are.

Maybe one day, there will have to be a Diet Armageddon Thread for us to duke it out. I'm not a small calf. I'm eating the same food that all large human populations have eaten since the agricultural revolution, and they weren't obese. Neither am I. Coincidence? Hmm...

(I don't use any oil so I agree about concentrated fats.)

[Greenlight]

It's simple math, really. Someone else gave the number: fat is fat is fat is fat is fat. It's 240 calories per ounce. Nothing will ever beat that, but you can't only eat fats. You need an assortment of fats, carbs, proteins, micro- and phyto-nutrients. I put dehydrated collard green powder in my food bag and mix it in with wetter "boil in bag" meals to get my greens. It's like having super nutritional salad on the trail and it doesn't have an overpowering taste. I don't see myself quaffing Mazola on the trail, but I probably will add it to dinners for the caloric boost. I watched a documentary about a year ago about these college kids who went to a village in an underdeveloped country for a summer, only spending the amount of money the locals made, to see if they could survive. After a month they were emaciated and had no energy to work. One of the locals finally clued them in that when they bought food (they were trying to eat "healthy") they needed to buy animal fat and add it to their meals. They perked right back up, put on weight, and learned an important lesson.

[Connie]

My point, of mentioning GMO's is that nutritional variety is not achieved at the typical produce aisle, because it is one plant genetically modified to appear to be a different plant, and, is given a different name: brocolli rabe is the plant.

To achieve nutritional variety, for example, do not rely on the crucifers.

I looked at the species classification, now. I looked to other cuisines for recipe ideas for different fresh food.

For example, I am combining kale and parsnips on rice, with a little olive oil, and one meat protein.

Recently, my garden and orchard has heritage selections.

This is the food I had, as a child. I am doing all that, again.

Next, I prepare it for backpacking.