THE ARTICLE
Although far from being the one true standard for measuring a healthy meal, kilojoule counting can be an important tool for raising awareness about the varying impact of food on the public waistline. Energy-rich foods, especially when consumed by those with sedentary lifestyles and in portion sizes popular today, are a major threat to health and well-being.
As more and more restaurants, fast-food establishments, and food packaging companies are required to boldly advertise their kilojoule content to their customers, the move away from kilojoule-rich meals and products has intensified. The approaches to kilojoule reduction vary from replacing ingredients with lower fat or lower sugar versions to reducing portion sizes.
The problem with switching to low fat or low sugar ingredients has been that it tends to lower satiety and the customer often compensates for this by eating more. It's all very well to make each portion significantly lower in calories and fat and advertise it as "healthier", but if the customer then consumes two portions in order to reach satiety while believing that it's better than eating one of the less healthier varieties, then the situation becomes worse.
Reducing portion sizes while maintaining flavourful ingredients can often be a more effective solution considering the tendency that people have to eat until the plate is empty. The advantage of reducing portion sizes extends as well to the providers as they can generally charge the same amount for less instead of having to swap cheap ingredients for more expensive ones.
Consumers should be wary however of food establishments that promote their new products as healthier than their products' previous incarnations. Much like the tobacco industries' attempts to promote low tar as a "healthier" alternative to regular cigarettes, sometimes the best choice is to avoid a product altogether rather than indulging in the less unhealthy version.
The prominent displaying of kilojoule content is also a wake-up call for many of us who invariably fall into the trap of self-delusion about portion sizes. The eye can easily be fooled into thinking that a quadrupled-sized monster chocolate chip biscuit is in fact just a double-sized biscuit or that the large bucket of popcorn is not that much bigger than the medium. If the customer could see exactly how many kilojoules they were getting into to begin with, they'd be a lot more hesitant about picking up that beast.
In the United States, the move towards posting kilojoule content is gaining momentum throughout the country with nearly three dozen states requiring counts to be posted in some form or another. There are proposals in the US Congress to pass uniform nationwide regulations on the posting of kilojoule content and other nutritional information.
Often times, having the kilojoules listed in plain sight can be a source of shock. For example, there are more kilojoules in a regular bagel than in your standard doughnut and a large bucket of buttered movie popcorn packs over 6690 joules; that's the kilojoule equivalent of two dozen glazed donuts! Even a single blueberry scone from Starbucks has over 2000 joules. Considering that the recommended kilojoule intake for a healthy adult is around 8.4, it doesn't take a math genius to figure out that eating one of these will seriously jeopardise your diet.
If knowing how many kilojoules consumers are taking in doesn't completely turn them off their favourite sinful treat, at least it's encouraging them towards exercising more in an effort to compensate for the sin.
As much as counting kilojoules seems to be coming back into fashion, it's a long way from becoming a habit of the average consumer. Restaurants that have experimented with offering lower calorie and lower fat options for their customers have often seen these options ignored.
Counting kilojoules as a weight loss tool is a technique that is almost a century old. "Diet and Health, With a Key to the Calories" by Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters (published in 1918), was the first weight loss guide to centre on kilojoule counting. Now new technology is stepping in to help those with busy schedules or lack of resolve to keep track of the kilojoules ingested. New iPhone apps such as Lose It, Calorie Check, and Food IQ provide engaging ways for looking up and tracking kilojoule content for a wide variety of foods.
But perhaps the simplest and easiest way to lose weight is not so much to track your kilojoule intake but to instead follow Dr. Peters formula: eat in 100-calorie portions and eat no more than 5 kilojoules a day.
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