How Many Calories Does Eating Ice Cream Burn?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the caloric implications of consuming cold desserts, particularly ice cream, and whether the energy required to raise the temperature of these foods results in a net caloric loss from the body. Participants explore the thermodynamic principles involved and the distinction between food calories and heat calories.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • One participant claims that consuming very cold desserts leads to a significant caloric loss due to the energy required to raise the dessert's temperature to body temperature, suggesting a net loss of approximately 5,000 calories from body fat.
  • Several participants challenge this reasoning, noting that food calories and heat calories are different units, with 1 food calorie being approximately 1,000 heat calories, which drastically reduces the net caloric loss to about 5 food calories.
  • Another participant humorously suggests that if the initial claim were true, one could consume cold beverages without gaining weight.
  • One participant references Richard Feynman to highlight the confusion caused by different energy measurement units in physics.
  • Another participant clarifies that while heat calories and food calories are different, both can be used to measure energy, emphasizing the distinction between the two types of calories.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally disagree on the validity of the initial claim regarding caloric loss from consuming cold desserts. Multiple competing views remain regarding the interpretation of caloric units and their implications for weight loss.

Contextual Notes

The discussion highlights the confusion surrounding the definitions and conversions between food calories and heat calories, which remains unresolved. The assumptions made in the initial claim about caloric loss are also questioned but not definitively settled.

zanazzi78
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I just found this on the web and thought i`d share...

As we all know, it takes 1 calorie to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree centigrade. Translated into meaningful terms, this means that if you eat a very cold dessert (generally consisting of water in large part), the natural processes which raise the consumed dessert to body temperature during the digestive cycle literally sucks the calories out of the only available source, your body fat.
For example, a dessert served and eaten at near 0 degrees C (32.2 deg. F) will in a short time be raised to the normal body temperature of 37 degrees C (98.6 deg. F). For each gram of dessert eaten, that process takes approximately 37 calories as stated above. The average dessert portion is 6 oz, or 168 grams. Therefore, by operation of thermodynamic law, 6,216 calories (1 cal./gm/deg. x 37 deg. x 168 gms) are extracted from body fat as the dessert's temperature is normalized. Allowing for the 1,200 latent calories in the dessert, the net calorie loss is approximately 5,000 calories.

Obviously, the more cold dessert you eat,the better off you are and the faster you will lose weight, if that is your goal. This process works equally well when drinking very cold beer in frosted glasses. Each ounce of beer contains 16 latent calories, but extracts 1,036 calories (6,216 cal. per 6 oz. portion) in the temperature normalizing process. Thus the net calorie loss per ounce of beer is 1,020 calories. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to calculate that 12,240 calories (12 oz. x 1,020 cal./oz.) are extracted from the body in the process of drinking a can of beer.

Frozen desserts, e.g., ice cream, are even more beneficial, since it takes 83 cal./gm to melt them (i.e., raise them to 0 deg. C) and an additional 37 cal./gm to further raise them to body temperature. The results here are really remarkable, and it beats running hands down.

Unfortunately, for those who eat pizza as an excuse to drink beer, pizza (loaded with latent calories and served above body temperature) induces an opposite effect. But, thankfully, as the astute reader should have already reasoned, the obvious solution is to drink a lot of beer with pizza and follow up immediately with large bowls of ice cream.We could all be thin if we were to adhere religiously to a pizza, beer, and ice cream diet.

Well I'm off to the pub for my tea!
 
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there is a flaw in this reasoning. A 'food calorie' and 'heat calorie' are two different units, with 1 food calorie ~ 1000 heat calories (in most references I've seen).

The net calorie loss from your ice cream example would therefore be 5 'food calories', a relatively insigificant amount compared to the total caloric intake for the average person.
 
Not my reasoning but i`ll give you that.

"For those who want some proof that physicists are human, the
proof is in the idiocy of all the different units which they use for
measuring energy."

- R Feynman
 
imabug said:
there is a flaw in this reasoning. A 'food calorie' and 'heat calorie' are two different units, with 1 food calorie ~ 1000 heat calories (in most references I've seen).
True. A "food calorie" is actually a kilocalorie. You can't really expect common people to learn such long words and multiplicative prefixes ... no, that way they might end up learning some science ! :rolleyes:
 
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It would be great if it did work, i could drink cold rum and coke and not
get fat.
 
Granted, most would become diabetics...
 
imabug said:
there is a flaw in this reasoning. A 'food calorie' and 'heat calorie' are two different units, with 1 food calorie ~ 1000 heat calories (in most references I've seen).

The net calorie loss from your ice cream example would therefore be 5 'food calories', a relatively insigificant amount compared to the total caloric intake for the average person.

It isn't that "heat calories" and "food calories" are different units, it's that one calorie will raise 1 gram of water 1°C and one Calorie will raise 1000 grams of water 1°C. You can measure heat in Calories just as easily as you can in calories. With food we happen to use Calories.
 

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