https://nourishcoaches.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Whats-100-Calories.mp3

This podcast was inspired by clients asking us: "Are 100 calorie snack foods ok to eat?" It got us thinking - What makes up 100 calories of snack food? 

Here is our answer.

In this Navigating Nourishment Podcast, Wendy and Debbie discuss the importance of prioritizing nutrient-dense snacks for sustainable health. Debbie highlights the manipulation of taste buds by the processed food industry, leading to false cravings. Wendy emphasized the importance of choosing snacks that provide a good balance of nutrients. They compared and contrasted various snack options, including blueberries, radishes, and cheese, and encouraged listeners to prioritize whole, nutrient-dense foods for optimal well-being.TranscriptDebbie  0:01  

I was out and about the other day, and I overheard a conversation - a couple of women talking about calories. They were talking about choosing between a couple of different foods because one had more calories, and one had less calories.  The foods that they were talking about, to me were not the most nutritious choices. And it made me think about how people focus on calories without thinking about the difference between one calorie means next to another kind of calorie.

Wendy  1:17  

We've been trained to talk about all food being equal, and it's just about calories in and calories out - as an energy expenditure, and it's so much more rich and nuanced. And this, I think, is where a lot of the confusion and difficulty comes with people and we want to simplify it by sharing some really interesting data.

Debbie  1:45  

Exactly. In talking about the different foods that are of the same amount of calories, you can get very different effects in your body. And and it doesn't come down to losing or gaining weight necessarily, because what happens in your body is so different when you eat one thing next to another one.Wendy and Debbie discuss the nutrient density of different foods, highlighting the difference between 100 calories of real food versus ultra-processed foods.Wendy  2:18  

Absolutely. Some foods are more easily broken down. The calories in their whole food form act differently once they're broken down inside our body. So there are so many layers to how our body absorbs and processes foods. That's where the confusion is. So let's come back to what is nutrient dense. What gives your body the language and the fuel and the energy to turn it into the skin and blood and energy. We are walking food.

Debbie  2:53  

We are what we eat. And besides that, 100 calories of one food versus another one can fill you up and make you feel satisfied and make you feel really good. And another 100 calories keeps you jonesing for something else 20 minutes later because it didn't fulfill any nutrition needs.Different foods can provide varying levels of satisfaction and nutrition, despite having the same number of calories.Wendy  2:53  

Satisfaction - is one of the big things we want to talk about today.  Satisfaction in the palate, like on our tongue has been manipulated so much by highly processed food industry, that our dopamine receptors are all firing with this false food.

Debbie  3:39  

Our taste buds had been hijacked. We have a podcast about that very sadly.

Wendy  3:43  

So we don't know what an apple really tastes like anymore. And so some of the calories we're going to talk about, they might make us tick, give us some sort of happiness via the taste, but it gives us no energy. It gives us no strength. And it's just empty calories.

Debbie  4:15  

So let's just start with our little list of 10 or 11 things, right? We

Wendy  4:22  

We're kind of doing a comparison with this list. We aren't demonizing any of these foods or making any of them a halo food. We are simply bringing awareness to what 100 calories looks like in food.