A large banana has 145 calories. Does anyone know how many calories it takes to digest it?

Question

Another way to ask. There is a difference in 145 callories from Banana as compared to M&M's due to the calories it takes to digest. What it that difference?

Answer 1

Bananas are mostly made up of carbs. I have an article that says when you eat something that is mostly carbs-it takes about 10% of those calories to breakdown, digest, and absorb the food. Fat -only 3%(1T butter 100cal-3 cal to breakdown. Protein is the best-30% is used. I hope I didn't make this confusing. So if you eat a chicken breast (mostly protein) that is 100 calories-You could say you only wind up with 70 calories after you digest. The butter would be 97 net calories.

Answer 2

I'm not sure. If it was a negative calorie food, then it means that your body burns more calories digesting it than it actually takes to consume the damn thing lol. and on the list of negative calorie foods...i do not see banana. but I would count all fruits + vegetables as healthy 'free' foods.

Answer 3

the difference is the speed with which the body breaks down and metabolizes the two items you mention. candy, already being pure sugar, is broken down in about ten minutes and used, a banana, having a few more complex carbohydrates takes about 30 to 45 minutes to break down into sugars and used. weight gain occurs if the first sugars eaten use up the available supply of insulin in the body, subsequent sugars are then stored as fat for later use. This happens in the human body whether you are diabetic or not. Diabetics have greater problems because they do not produce sufficient insulin to begin with, or as in the case of type 2 diabetics, their insulin is no longer effective. In any case, refined, simple sugar leads to weight gain, too much of any kind of food does too, they are all broken down eventually into sugars for the body to use.