How to Determine Caloric Content of Foods

Different calorie sources provide different levels of energy when metabolized. This may not seem important at first, but when it comes to losing or controlling weight, understanding the caloric content of food can help you determine if you are eating enough of the right foods, or maybe too much of the wrong ones. To ensure that you are eating a healthy diet, you need to figure out if you are consuming the correct balance of fat, protein and carbohydrates.

Instructions

• 1

  Read the nutrition label on the package. Nutrition labels indicate how many calories are contained in a single serving of a particular food, how many servings are contained in the package, and the calorie breakdown, which shows how many grams of fat, protein and carbohydrate a serving of food contains.

• 2

  Calculate the number of fat calories contained in a serving of food by multiplying the number of grams of fat by nine. One gram of fat equals nine calories; therefore, if a food has eight grams of fat per serving size, 72 of the total number of calories per serving come from fat.

• 3

  Determine the number of calories that come from protein by multiplying the number of grams of protein in one serving of food by four. Since one gram of protein equals four calories, doing the math can help you know if you are including enough protein in your daily diet.

• 4

  Compute the number of calories that come from carbohydrates by multiplying the number of carbohydrate grams of by four. One gram of carbohydrate equals four calories, so if one serving of a food has six grams of carbohydrate, 24 of the total number of calories are carbohydrate calories.

• 5

  Use an online calorie counter. There are many websites available that offer this free resource to help you track what you eat. (see resources) The United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service also offers an online Nutrient Database.