Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Does It Matter if Almonds Now Contain Fewer Calories?

Image from Fooducate - one of my most favorite blogs!

Not sure if you caught the buzz on this, but according to a new study we've been measuring almond calories wrong for years.

So does it matter?

Depends. If you're aiming to ensure you hit at least a minimum number of calories per meal or snack - absolutely as if correct, you may be getting less than your aim (where hitting minimums may be part of a strategy to reduce hunger or to gain weight).

On the other hand, if your hunger is well managed and you're eating almonds as snacks - I certainly wouldn't take it upon yourself to up the number as despite the fact that each almond may have fewer calories than you thought, eating more of them will of course increase total calories.

And what if we're calculating the calories wrong in everything (which may in fact be what we're doing)? Well it'll certainly impact upon formal recommendations (including my own), but unless eating too few calories is your primary problem, it's nothing I'd lose sleep over.

My advice? Aim for the smallest number of calories that leaves you happily satisfied, and if suddenly that number is in fact smaller than it was before, that won't change the fact that you were already happily satisfied.