The Calorie Myth
Calorie counting has become a religion in Western countries — but we’re getting it all wrong
Here’s a recipe: Take one bad idea, coat it with a veneer of science, and chow down heartily. It may taste great but the long-term effects on your health include serious indigestion.
The bad idea in this recipe is the calorie. On the surface, calories seem straightforward. You use them to measure how much fuel you put in your body and how much energy you use when you walk, run, or even just sit on the couch breathing. If you pump your body full of calories and leave it idle, all that extra fuel sloshes around inside you. It doesn’t get used and instead, it becomes the fat that pads your skin and engulfs your organs.
This is more or less the central myth of Western diet. The word “myth” here doesn’t necessarily mean that calories aren’t real. It just means that calories are a story around which we organize our Western beliefs and values — just like ancient societies that had their own culture-shaping myths about why it rained and which spiritual beings ran the show.
But here’s the problem: If you take even a moment to learn about how the calorie was invented, how calories are measured, or what they actually represent, the whole story starts to unravel — fast.
