Food for Thought: Calories & Science

I have spent quite a lot of time in analyzing how food compares in all types of categories.  I have done some quantifiable comparisons measuring CAL/GRAM and determining calorie density of food.  During the thru-hike we had used the CAL/GRAM comparison to measure how foods compare to one another, and which calories would give the best bang for the buck.  Lets run through a quick comparison and set the stage for what CAL/GRAM really means to YOU.

THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES WERE BASED ON 100g SERVING SIZE.

Table of calorie density for foods from 1-8:

Green Beans	31	0.31
Carrots	41	0.41
Pineapples	48	0.48
Apples	52	0.52
Oatmeal	62	0.62
Dried Milk	64	0.64
Kidney Beans	82	0.82
Bananas	89	0.89
Black Beans	91	0.91
Wheat Bread	259	2.59
French Bread	274	2.74
Raisin Bran Cereal	321	3.21
Dried Blueberries	325	3.25
America cheese	337	3.37
Freeze Dried Blueberries	352	3.52
Creamy Wild Rice Soup	361	3.61
Brown Sugar	377	3.77
Cheddar cheese	403	4.03
Saltine Crackers	428	4.28
Chocolate Chips	479	4.79
Peanuts	567	5.67
Almonds	578	5.78
Cashews	581	5.81
Cashew Butter	587	5.87
Peanut Butter	588	5.88
Almond Butter	633	6.33
Olive Oil	884	8.84
Sesame Oil	884	8.84

Now obviously I just made a chart with a wide variety of things for you to analyze.  Please use this equation to examine foods around your house, or that you regularly consume... and what do you see?  Good?  Bad?  Not what you thought?  So if you study this chart for a few moments, you can begin to see the characteristics of food density.  I am going to be analyzing some foods coming up in the next couple of posts down the road.  I am planning on analyzing things like, if buying bars from expensive nutritional companies is better than buying the cheap supermarket brand.  I bet we have some seriously amazing results.  And I don't mean in favor of the expensive nutritional brands EITHER!!!

ALL THESE #S ARE JUST APPROXIMATE NUMBERS FROM A WEBSITE CALLED (http://www.fatsecret.com/)  PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THESE ARE JUST GUESTIMATES, BUT TO MY EXPERIENCE THEY ARE VERY ACCURATELY CLOSE TO WHAT I HAVE SEEN IN MY STUDIES.