The need for understanding calories.

More than once in my life I've been told to watch out for carrots and potatoes because they're "starchy” which causes weight gain. This warning has existed since at least 19th century England:

These [foods], said my excellent adviser, contain starch and saccharine matter, tending to create fat, and should be avoided altogether. My impression from the experiments I have tried on myself of late is, that saccharine matter is the great moving cause of fatty corpulence. I know that it produces in my individual case increased weight and a large amount of flatulence, and believe, that not only sugar, but all elements tending to create saccharine matter in the process of digestion, should be avoided. - Excerpt from William Banting's 1863, A Letter on Corpulence.

Despite being nearly two centuries old, Mr. Banting’s impression is mostly correct. Potatoes are starchy. And there’s also a connection between starchiness and flatulence. But starchy foods don’t “create fat.” Fat production is a bodily response to a consistently high-calorie diet. All foods can be the “cause of fatty corpulence.” All foods cause weight gain if you eat enough of them. Think of the rabbits who gain weight on a diet of grass. Starchy foods can make you heavier by way of water retention, but there’s nothing especially fattening about them.

Potatoes approach my 1 cal/g baseline, but they’re not high-calorie. It’d be surprising if potatoes and carrots caused us to stumble on our way to physical flourishing.

Mr. Banting lives in the middle of the 1800s. He lacks two things:

• The formal discovery of diabetes.
• The concept of the food calorie.

Mr. Banting’s Letter on Corpulence is freely available on the internet. It’s over 150 years old but reads like a blog post (phrased in Victorian English). In it, Mr. Banting describes his struggle with overweightness and related ailments. Eventually, he begins losing his sight and hearing, suggesting nerve damage due to unmanaged diabetes. We won’t know because diabetes was in the process of being formally discovered at the time.

Throughout his adult life, Mr. Banting wants to lose weight. This might surprise you. You and I usually imagine every 1800s as undernourished in a food-scarce environment.

You assume that everyone is trying to gain weight. There is truth to this, but it’s not universally true for all folks in Victorian England. For example, look at this excerpt from a 19th-century book on dining: “Leanness though it may be no absolute disadvantage to a man, is a great disaster for ladies, for beauty is their life, and beauty consists chiefly in the rounded limb and graceful curve."

Contrast that with Lord Byron, arguably the most influential figure of 19th century England:

I have lost 18 LB in my weight, that is one Stone & 4 pounds since January, this was ascertained last Wednesday, on account of a Bet with an acquaintance.

However don't be alarmed; I have taken every means to accomplish the end, by violent exercise and Fasting, as I found myself too plump. I shall continue my Exertions, having no other amusement; I wear seven Waistcoats and a great Coat, run, and play at cricket in this Dress, till quite exhausted by excessive perspiration, use the Hip Bath daily; eat only a quarter of a pound of Butcher's Meat in 24 hours, no Suppers or Breakfast, only one Meal a Day; drink no malt liquor, but a little Wine, and take Physic occasionally. By these means my Ribs display Skin of no great Thickness, & my Clothes have been taken in nearly half a yard

- Excerpt from a letter to To John Hanson, April 2nd, 1807. From Byron's Letter and Journals Volume 1, edited by Rowland E. Prothero, 1898

As it turns out, 19th century England marked a turn in food.

Since then [the reign of King George IV], excessive drinking has gone out of fashion, but an elaborate style of gastronomy [luxurious dining] has come in to fill up the void; so there is not much gained.

Byron had not damaged his body by strong drinks, but his terror of getting fat was so great that he reduced his diet to the point of absolute starvation

- Excerpt from Trelawny, Edward John. 1858. Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron.

Mr. Banting is well off and can afford to eat the luxurious foods of his time. Since those foods are energy-dense, weight gain is effortless. More than that, those foods tend towards excess.

He consults local doctors, who fail to help him lose weight or curb his vision and hearing loss. For weight loss, his doctors prescribe exercise, fresh sea air, Turkish baths, and more. His doctor, for hearing loss, “looked into my ears, sponged them internally, and blistered the outside, without the slightest benefit.”

Eventually, he encounters a doctor who prescribes him a low-carbohydrate diet. Consuming fewer carbs relieves Mr. Banting's diabetic symptoms. He forges a connection between his way of eating and his wellbeing. This leads to a lower body weight which he maintains for the rest of his life. This also compels him to champion his diet regime by writing and self-publishing an open letter to the public. The term banting is included in the English dictionary. And the internet tells me that, to this day, the main verb for dieting in Swedish is banta, hailing from William’s surname.

Modern physiology makes two things clear. First, Mr. Banting is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. That explains the relief he gets from a low-carb diet. The second is that Mr. Banting loses weight because he eats fewer calories.

My former dietary table was bread and milk for breakfast, or a pint of tea with plenty of milk and sugar, and buttered toast; meat, beer, much bread (of which I was always very fond), and pastry for dinner, the meal of tea similar to that of breakfast, and generally a fruit tart or bread and milk for supper. I had little comfort and far less sound sleep.

Mr. Banting’s new diet is a ton of meat:

For breakfast, I take four or five ounces of beef, mutton, kidneys, broiled fish, bacon, or cold meat of any kind except pork; a large cup of tea (without milk or sugar), a little biscuit, or one ounce of dry toast.

For dinner, five or six ounces of any fish except salmon, any meat except pork, any vegetable except potato, one ounce of dry toast, fruit out of a pudding, any kind of poultry or game, and two or three glasses of good claret, sherry, or Madeira—champagne, port and beer forbidden.

For tea, two or three ounces of fruit, a rusk or two, and a cup of tea without milk or sugar.

For supper, three or four ounces of meat or fish, similar to dinner, with a glass or two of claret.

For nightcap, if required, a tumbler of grog—(gin, whiskey, or brandy, without sugar)—or a glass or two of claret or sherry.

Mr. Banting’s pamphlet anticipates the need for understanding calories. He correctly ascribes the improvement of his diabetic symptoms to avoiding carbohydrates, but his weight loss occurs because he stops eating like royalty.

The calorie existed in Mr. Banting’s time, but it wasn’t known to lay folk for another 50 or 60 years after him. Calories explain that weight gain or loss occurs regardless of food. What we eat matters, but so does how much we eat. And how much we eat isn’t just the size of our plates, but their caloric content.

We need to know what calories are. Imagine losing weight without knowing what a calorie was. You’d probably think potatoes created fat and that you could destroy that fat by wearing seven waistcoats during exercise.