[rdancer]

Since I entered the workforce a few years ago, I have gone from underweight to obese, and with no spontaneous trend-reversal in sight, I have recently decided to consciously monitor my intake. Four weeks and two negative kilos later, the most striking realization is precisely what you are saying, but viewed from two different perspectives:

A banana is about 105 kCal, 14g of sugars, 13g of complex carbs, and not much else[1]. My daily caloric budget is 19 bananas. I need 90g+ of protein a day, and I need some oil for cooking, so the discretionary budget is about a half. If I eat normally and budget the calories well, I will have about two bananas' worth of snacks which I can eat outside of my three main meals. That's the extent of my freedom. A banana is a big deal.

On the other hand, if I hypothetically only had bananas in my pantry, I would need to eat 19 of them to hit my calories (more if I didn't want to lose weight). That's not fun. It's hard work after the first five or six! In a less hypothetical situation of protein and fiber intake, I would need 400g+ of chicken breast meat and 1kg+ of kale (each being a good source of one and the other respectively). My stomach is turning just thinking that, and I really had to learn to balance my diet on many different foodstuffs.

In isolation, it can be crazy how much or how little of particular nutrient a food contains.

[1] http://www.fatsecret.co.uk/Diary.aspx?pa=fjrd&eid=2165694177...