[HamSession]

I agree with your suggestions for human assessment because of problem posed by food calories varying significantly due to different preparations.

Take for example soda, if I gave you a picture of soda in a glass could you tell it was diet or regular? You might scoff at such an edge case but it quickly becomes more common when looking into food perpetration techniques. This is why caloric estimation is a really difficult and causes restaurants to not list their calories as the calories of a meal do not equal the sum of it's parts.

All these solutions are common as people want a signal to tell them to stop eating, but these are insufficient as people will simply ignore it due to hunger cravings (as happens on diets). Any nutritionist service in addition to detailing calories would need to incentive the patient to recognize the need to lose weight or setup a helpline.

[gohrt]

> causes restaurants to not list their calories as the calories of a meal do not equal the sum of it's parts.

In my area, restaurants list the calories for each menu item, exactly to the extent required by law (chain restaurants are required to public calorie counts), plus some promotional "under 500 calories" or what-have-you for diet-targeting places.

[tryitnow]

How is that " the calories of a meal do not equal the sum of it's parts"?

That seems to violate the laws of thermodynamics.

[alphydan]

He may be talking about cooking. This could involve chemical reactions, or facilitate / slow the absorption of nutrients, therefore changing the effective caloric intake from various ingredients.

Thermodynamics should add up once you account for heating, cooling, evaporation, enzymes, waste, etc

[gohrt]

Cooking changes the caloric content of food. Not all of every ingredient gets all the way to the diner plate.

Biology is not thermodynamics. Humans are not perfect combustion engines.