Cooking food and calories

[CiderMonkey]

Does toasting bread (or cooking any food for that matter) affect the amount of calories it holds?

[ursula62]

If you toast bread, all you lose is water, which is calorie free.

If you cook food in butter or oil then you would add calories.

[CiderMonkey]

what about if you don't add butter or oil. Say, for example, when you do jacket potato on a bbq!

[ursula62]

Apparently jacket potatoes contain slightly more calories than new potatoes - but that is merely because the older potatoes have less water content. The calorie difference is less than 2 Calories per ounce.

The calorie values of food are measured in a calorimeter and assume full energy absorbtion from the food, so they should only ever be used as a guide.

[ursula62]

Toast has more calories than bread per ounce or per gram. This is because the water lost makes the bread lighter when it is toasted.

There are still the same number of calories in a single slice of bread whether it is toasted or not.