Carbs, calories and CAT VIDEOS; not all calories were created equal…

A calorie can, in practice, mean very different things depending on the source of those often unidentifiable lumps that gravitate towards your mouth. While choosing a box of cereal or a carton of milk at the store, it’s worth considering the energy intake in relation to the nutritional value. Often, these two aspects of food are inversely related—when the calorie load skyrockets, the amount of nutrients and minerals essential for health may vanish almost completely from each bite.

ARE CARBS REALLY THE COURSE OF ALL EVIL THAT HAPPENS IN THE BODY

Many people fear carbohydrates because they've maybe watched a YouTube performance piece by some internet guru claiming that carbohydrates cause weight gain. So should carbohydrates be replaced by (saturated) fats, which contain more than twice the calories compared to carbs or protein? Or would it be better to occasionally pay attention to food quality before it enters your mouth, since the quality of carbohydrates partly determines how many of the calories listed on the cereal box your body actually absorbs—and potentially stores?

In this instance it’s probably good to keep in mind that there are several important functions for carbohydrates in human body:

1. They maintain stable blood sugar levels – especially glucose helps regulate blood sugar and provides steady energy.

2. Primary energy source for cells (especially the brain) – the brain primarily uses glucose for energy.

3. Spare proteins – sufficient carbohydrate intake prevents the breakdown of muscle proteins for energy.

4. Necessary for fat metabolism – carbohydrates are needed for the complete oxidation of fatty acids ("fats burn in the flame of carbohydrates").

5. Participate in cell-to-cell communication – carbohydrate chains on cell membranes act as recognition elements.

6. Serve as structural components – e.g., glycoproteins in cell membranes and proteoglycans in connective tissues

WHERE THE ENERGY IS STORED

It's also worth thinking about whether you want that energy stored, for instance, as fat tissue or as protein mass. This, too, affects overall consumption and calorie mathematics. Not all products only contain energy—some even have added nutrients. But if grocery shopping is done wandering between shelves while staring more at your phone screening intense cat acrobatic videos or less entertaining but all cosuming work emails, there may not be much capacity left for making quality choices.

And lets talk about the childhood. The obvious risk of growing up with soda can on one hand and pizza slice on the other is that children grow into adulthood not just overweight but also malnourished. But there’s more! If there’s always Coke available as a mealtime drink in the fridge, it also fuels game addiction much more effectively than far lower-calorie tap water. Add on top of this slowly ticking calorie bomb the constant stressors keeping the nervous and endocrine systems on high alert—like social media’s illusions of what’s possible and worth pursuing—and before we know it, we're hit not only with metabolic syndrome and musculoskeletal diagnoses, but also a nice cocktail of various psychological symptoms.

And in conclusion, this excessive hoarding of calories doesn’t just burden ourselves and those close to us—it also puts enormous pressure on the environment as accelerating addictions take over more agricultural land across the world.