Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
Calories Defined
Today’s question is one I often get about my 15 seconds of fame in Morgan Spurlock’s film, SuperSize Me! (you can view the clip on my food politics website). A student in Great Britain writes: “…I would like to comment on your description of a calorie….You described it as “the amount of energy required to heat 1 litre of water by 1 degree Celsius.” Whereas I would argue that a calorie is the quantity of thermal energy required to raise 1g / 1cm3 by 1 degree Celsius, from an initial temperature of 15 degrees Celsius or 252 Kelvin. May I suggest that what you meant was a kilocalorie, and although this may seem pedantic, this is a gross difference and an inaccurate education for those watching. Especially after the number of people that were demonstrated to have no real understanding of the calorie…this was disappointing.”
My comment: Oh dear. It’s great that students are learning their basic chemistry but what I defined in SuperSize Me! was a Calorie (spelled with a capital C)–the kind used on food labels. This, of course, is really a kilocalorie. The calorie/Calorie/kilocalorie confusion is why I devote an entire chapter of What to Eat to explaining what calories are and why they matter.
