We can use simple arithmetic to find the best vegan low calorie foods

What are good low calorie foods on a vegan diet? Foods that we can eat until we are satisfied without gaining weight.

A typical calorie chart shows the calorie content of foods by portion sizes, like a cup of rice or a large apple. For effective weight loss, we actually want to select foods with a low calorie density.

What is calorie density? It is a way of finding good weight loss foods by checking  how may calories they contain per ounce (or per pound or per 100 grams.)

Scientists studied the foods people ate and they learned something interesting: a person eats about the same weight of food every day. This is true even though he or she eats different foods every day. There is something about the weight of food that fills our stomach and triggers feelings of satiety in our brain.

But the calories in an ounce of one food can be very different from the calories in an ounce of a different food. The number of calories per ounce of a food is called the calorie density.
An ounce of celery contains 4.5 calories and an ounce of peanut butter has 166.7 calories. The calorie density of celery is 4.5 and the calorie density of peanut butter is 166.7. Are they both low calorie foods? Definitely not, but the celery certainly is. Peanut butter might be "low in calories" if you only eat one tenth of an ounce of it. But who can do that? 

Scientists have done many studies to measure the calorie density of peoples' diets. They measure it the same way they measure the calorie density of a single food. They divide the number of calories someone eats in a day by the number of ounces of food the person eats. The studies all show the same thing:

The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) recently released a report stating that overweight and obese people have a higher risk of cancer than normal weight people. They recommended that to avoid weight problems and cancer, we should keep the calorie density of our diet around 34.5 - 37.5 cal/oz.

Few people meet that requirement today. But in 1949 in Okinawa, nearly everyone did. The traditional Okinawan diet had a calorie density of 37.5 - 40.6 cal/oz.

The Okinawans were slender and healthy. Most of their calories came from sweet potatoes...they ate a lot of them! Only 8 percent of their calories came from fat. A sweet potato diet with some leafy greens and fruit would give us all the nutrients we need. And it would fill us up.

*The calorie density of tofu is low because tofu contains a lot of water. We can use moderate amounts of tofu to make dressings or dairy substitutes. However, tofu is not a whole food, and half of the calories in tofu come from fat. 

**A few black olives won't affect our calorie density too much. They can add wonderful flavor to vegan dishes. They are high in sodium so don't snack on them.

We could be fat vegans if we eat too many high calorie-density foods.....foods like bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, desserts, nuts, and especially oil. 

Suppose we eat one ounce of celery filled with one ounce of peanut butter. That makes 2 ounces of food containing a total of 171.2 calories (4.5 + 166.7). Divide by 2 and we have a snack with 85.6 calories per ounce. The calorie density is way too high and will lead to weight gain.

Maybe we love peanut butter and we just have to have some with our celery. Let's say we get some exercise evey day and we want to keep our calorie density between 30 and 35. An ounce of peanut butter and 5 oz of celery would give us a calorie density of 31.5. That is a number we could live with....for a snack. 

• Look at the Nutrition Facts to find out how many ounces are in one serving. If the servings are measured in grams, divide the grams by 28.35 to get ounces. (Divide by 30 for a rough estimate.)

• Look at the Nutrition Facts to find out how many calories are in one serving.

• Divide calories by ounces.

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