Calorie Counts For Various Foods

You don't have to count calories to lose weight, but many dieters find that it's helpful. Learning about calories and maintaining a log of the calories in everything you eat causes you to be more aware of your food choices and more able to make the right choices for a healthy diet. Ultimately though, you won't need to formally count calories and you'll know intuitively that having one egg at breakfast won't hurt you but that a three-egg omelet with ham and cheese will.

What is a Calorie?

Generally speaking, a calorie is a unit of measurement, such as an ounce or an inch, which measures the "energy value of food," according to Miriam Nelson, author of "Strong Women Stay Slim." Nelson explains that 1 calorie equals the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 g of water by 1 degree. In other words, calories provide the fuel that your body burns to move muscles, to activate brain cells and to keep your body working.

Kinds of Calories

Some foods contain more calories than others. For example, fats contain 9 calories per gram on average, carbohydrates and proteins contain 4 calories per gram and alcohol has 7 calories per gram, according to MayoClinic.com. On the whole, you will know that a food with lots of fat, such as meats or cookies, contains more calories than foods with little or no fat, such as vegetables.

Calories in Foods

A number of different sources provide calorie counts for specific foods. Websites such as LIVESTRONG.COM and the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database contain lists of many commonly eaten foods, and they list calorie counts for various amounts.

At the USDA site, for instance, you can search for the term "bread" and then choose from a long list of bread items, such as egg, whole wheat, oatmeal bread and pita. You'll then choose an amount, such as grams, cups or ounces, press "submit" and get a screen showing the number of calories as well as other nutritional information about the food.

Serving Size and Calories

Many food manufacturers also list calorie counts and portion sizes on their food labels. Unfortunately, sometimes the serving size is less than what an average person would think of as one serving. You might need to double or triple the calorie count if you eat more than one serving.

For instance, the Keebler graham cracker pie crust lists the calorie count of one serving as 110 calories. They also list the serving size as 1/8 of the crust. A 1/8-size portion means that eight people could have a piece of the pie, an unlikely scenario in America in 2010.

Foods with Negative Calories

Writing at MayoCliniic.com, Dr. Donald Hensrud explains some people believe that you can lose weight when you eat a low-calorie food, such as celery, that takes more calories to digest than it contains -- that you will burn 80 calories, for instance, by eating a 25-calorie portion of broccoli. But while Hensrud says this is theoretically possible, he adds that there are no reputable studies showing that this is the case.