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Calorie density (calorie/volume) is a useful metric, but as you've discovered it's important to also consider satiation/calorie which sometimes is not proportional to calorie density, as well as calorie/serving which also often differs from calorie density. Not only are fats satiating, but they satiate quickly and for a long time. When they hit your intestines they immediately signal your body that it is full. This is because fats are calorie dense and are the longest burning category of calorie, so the body benefited from an early warning system to keep its satiation estimate accurate. And, to be honest, while fat itself is obviously the most calorie dense (what was it, like 6 or 8 per g, compared to 4 for protein and sugar?), fatty foods often are not dense in terms of calorie/service. Bacon, for example, while often perceived as a fatty, terrible food, is really low on the calorie/serving metric and the fats boost its satiation metric very high. There are also some subtleties to satiation/calorie. There's the biological satiation; your body telling your brain that you've consumed enough calories. And then there's mental satiation; your mind being happy with what you just ate. And biological satiation is sometimes inaccurate to the extent that it's really a dual purposed signal. It signals "you're full", but it's interpreted as both "I'm full" and "I have enough calories". Fat is ideal in that it triggers "I'm full" while also providing the calories to back it up. Vegetables will fill you up, but they don't have any energy to back them up, so they can be problematic. They work best as a way to tune the density of a meal. And, of course, they provide much needed fiber, vitamins, and minerals, but I was focusing mostly on the weight-gain aspect of foods. Just a little food for thought to perhaps enhance the way you quantify various diets. |