Stop counting calories; it’s freshness that counts

We’ll admit it, we haaaate counting calories, but recent studies are showing that there’s more to good health than the number of calories we consume.

What’s in a calorie?

Calories are the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1-degree Celsius. On the flip side, calories are also used to describe the amount of energy our bodies need to perform physical tasks from breathing to exercising.

When we eat, our body digests the calories from what we eat differently. Have you heard of negative calories? Foods like celery require more calories to digest than the calories they provide, leading to a deficit, or energy burned instead of energy gained.

Why the amount of calories is null in void?

If you have the choice between a zero calorie sweetener and a 52-calorie serving of maple syrup, which would you go for? While the maple syrup is clearly more calorie dense, it contains 33% of our Recommended Daily Value of manganese and numerous antioxidants while zero calorie sweeteners contain aspartame, which many studies are concluding is a toxic carcinogen.

Furthermore, super foods like avocados, coconut oil, and walnuts are high calorie, yet they pack high doses of many nutrients our bodies need.

In conclusion, the number of calories in foods doesn’t always matter; it’s the number of nutrients they contain.

Why fresh is best?

Fresh foods have always been considered healthy, even from a caloric standpoint. Something from the ground is obviously going to have fewer calories than something from a fast food restaurant, but fresh foods are also living things.

Fresh foods are metabolized more efficiently and their nutrients absorbed more easily; fiber from an apple is digested better than fiber from a processed granola bar. The apple also doesn’t contain preservatives.

We stand behind the concept of fresh is best here at Rootastes, and prepare our dishes with locally sourced ingredients whenever possible. And we never count calories.

Meet Rootasters:

Meg is a dreamer, entrepreneur, and homesteader based in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She loves her cats, feasting, and road trips in her green VW Bug.