Carbs, Fat, Protein, and Gin

Do you know the caloric content of a gram of each carbs, fat, and protein? If not, gaining this knowledge can help you to understand food labels better.

A gram of carbohydrate and protein each have 4 calories.

A gram of fat has 9 calories.

Yep, fat packs more than twice as many calories in the same weight as carbs or protein.

This is why something can be so small and still contain so many calories- It's a high fat content.

On ounce of oil (2 Tablespoons) is 240 calories, all from fat.

For that same amount of calories you can have just over 2 cups of unsweetened applesauce, all of the calories from carbs.

See the difference?

So you can actually consume fat calories faster than carb or protein, because there are more calories in a smaller space.

All have a place in the diet, and you don't want to cut fat out entirely. I like to get between 10 and 30 percent of my calories from fat, but I try to get them healthy fats like olive oil, peanut oil, canola oil, and avocado. I'm allergic to tree nuts, but for those who aren't they and their oils are also healthy forms of fat. If I'm going to butter something I'd prefer it be the real thing- Butter made from cream.

As a general rule, if a source of fat can stay solid at room temp, it's not good for you.

Incidentally, a gram of alcohol is 7 calories, which is nearly that of fat and almost twice that of carbs and protein. With no nutritional value, there is little benefit to making alcohol part of ones diet.

All calories come from one of those four sources, by the way- Cabs, Protein, Fat, or Alcohol.