this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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The body isn't a fire and food isn't wood, so the analogy isn't a very good one.
And even if it was, wood in a fire pit does not burn uniformly.
The type of wood, the quality of the wood, the contents of the wood all affect how fast it burns and how hot it burns.
Very dry pine wood burns incredibly hot and very fast, whereas damp maple may self-extinguish. It may not be capable of maintaining its own fire due to its moisture content and the density of the fibers in the wood.
And while you can look at the whole and say this amount of wood emitted this many BTUs of heat energy, you can't say "this amount of wood being burned should emit this amount of heat in this period of time" when you're not taking into consideration the type of wood, the quality of wood, and even how the logs are arranged.
Science is about controlling variables, and when you have too many variables that are not being taken account of, you cannot get an accurate scientific measurement of the results of your experiment.
And that's not even taking into consideration the fact that the raw nutritional quality of foods grown in the western world at least has dropped precipitously, inducing people to eat more food to get the raw nutrition they need that's not just calories.
We know that calories are comprised of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, and we can generally account for those, but the nutrition, the selenium, the zinc, the iron, the calcium, the phosphates, the everything else that makes up the food that we eat. If it's not there in sufficient qualities to meet what our bodies are calling for, then it's natural for us to overeat to attempt to fill in those nutritional deficiencies.
And when your brain has been fucked by not getting the nutrition it needs, and your body has been fucked by not getting the nutrition it needs, and your food has been fucked by not delivering the nutrition you need, then once you're in that situation, it's not as simple as, oh, just don't eat that Twinkie.
So calories in, calories out is the truth.
Just like gravity is the truth.
But knowing the math, 9.8 meters a second squared, is not enough to go to the moon.
We literally burn sugar as fuel. Fires are just fast oxidation.