Google and various websites says 28g of pecans is between 185 and 195 calories, how in the world are praline pecans much less calories?

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
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    4 months ago

    It’s not an awful lot of calories in difference. Pecans, like all nuts, are highly caloric because they’re high in fat. It just so happens that your praline pecans replace part of the pecans with sugar, which is less caloric than fats. So 28 gr of praline pecans have less cals than 28gr regular pecans.

    • reddig33@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Reminds me of the “low fat” diet craze. “We replaced all that fat with salt and sugar. Enjoy!”

      • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        It’s the same with the lo-carb fad. No more sugars and starches, here’s a wad of salty fat!

        • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Except the way fat is metabolized is far better for you than what’s been paraded as “healthy”.

          I’d sooner eat a high fat diet than even moderate carb or any kind of low fat diet.

          Got diabetes in the family, I could lecture on how to manage it with diet (Type II), I’ve read so much research over the decades. Fat is crucial for stabilizing blood glucose.

          For an introduction, read “The Zone” by Barry Sears (the 1994 book, nothing else called the Zone, the rest is marketing garbage). It explains (indirectly) why a high fat diet isn’t the Bad Thing we’ve been lead to believe.

          • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            4 months ago

            Why is everyone anti-science when it comes to nutrition? Sorry, but you’re just wrong, which I suppose isn’t too surprising when your reference is a three-decades old book written by a goofball non-scientist who knows about as much biochemistry as you do. None whatsoever.

            Saturated fat is processed by the liver from Chylomicrons to VLDLs to LDLs in an incredibly taxing process directly responsible for fatty liver disease. No faster way to get diabetes than eating lots of saturated fat and sugar. Both are absolutely horrible and very poorly tolerated by humans, who are apes that evolved eating mostly plants. These are empirical facts. Stop treating food like a religion and just eat a fucking vegetable.

            • otp@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              They didn’t specify saturated fats, but I didn’t look up the book, so it may have.

              • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                4 months ago

                Forum discussions about food are like a biochemist’s personal hell. No offense, but you’re all dumb as shit.

                • otp@sh.itjust.works
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                  4 months ago

                  You must either know some very intelligent shit, or not know much about causing offense, lol

        • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          A low-carb food isn’t useful on its own because, as you pointed out, the fat/calorie count is usually huge. However, if you can stick to a full ketogenic diet, low-carb actually works for weight loss - ketosis isn’t dependent on a caloric deficit. Yes, most casual-but-dedicated dieters are still going to mess up other things with bad fats and excessive salts like making jerky roll ups in mozzarella dough while forgetting to stuff themselves with vegetables. Your body will take a few days to figure out how it’s supposed to get energy if you’re not supplementing with dietary sugars, but it does eventually. So while yes I roll my eyes at too many requests for low-carb items, I have to appreciate their misunderstanding resulting in my improved food options.

          Because that’s how I dropped 40lbs in 6 months without changing anything else in my life and while still having tasty food without guilt. 235>195 5’10 M

    • ericatty@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Seconding this. 28g of sugar has 108 calories.

      Which roughly just over half the amount of calories in 28 g of pecans (193 calories)

      So simple math.

      28g sugar + 28g pecans = 108 calories sugar + 193 calories Gives you 301 calories total

      28g sugar times 2 = 216 calories 28g pecans times 2 = 386 calories

      Sugar has significantly less calories per gram than pecans.

      When you go by weight, you can really play with the calorie content by substituting calorie dense food (like fats, nuts, oils, avocado) that has a lot of calories per gram with foods that are the same weight but less calories per gram

      Carbs like sugar have less calories per gram than fats, and salt has 0 calories, but it adds grams of weight

      The pralines are substituting some of the high calorie weight of the pecans for lower calorie sugar and salt. So the weight is the same, but the total ingredients have less calories because of the non-pecan stuff used to top off the weight to get to 28g)

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Which is why you should never just look at calories.

        600 calories of candy bars and 600 calories of steak looks a lot different. But will weigh about the same. From memory, that will be about 2 and a half Snickers, and one 8 ounce steak.

        Trying to eat 600 calories of healthy green vegetables would see your jaw fall off before you finished chewing. About 6 heads of romaine lettuce to get you that far. Until you add dressing. Which, generally speaking, will have about 120 calories per ounce. A little more than a candy bar.