What is “empty calories”?

It’s typically a term used in discussions about nutrient content. A source of calories that simultaneously lacks fiber, vitamins, minerals, etc.

They contribute nothing towards your sense of satiety or nutritional wellbeing aside from strictly calories.

The purpose of food is for your body to receive energy and nutrients.

Calories are energy.

Nutrients are things like carbs, protein, fats, vitamins, minerals, and other compounds that your body uses for its functions.

When you say “empty calories”, you typically mean that it’s a caloric food, but doesn’t have a meaningful amount of useful nutrients.

From an energy perspective all calories are equal.

But from a nutritional perspective, the health effect from 50 calories obtained from eating an egg are very different from say 50 calories obtained from eating a spoon of sugar.

While it is easy to count calories when measuring dietary requirements, we must be mindful that saying you need 2000 calories a day does not mean you can survive on just 500 grams of sugar a day.

Your body needs vitamins and minerals and even fiber. But calories from sugar don’t give you any of those, they are “empty” of such nutrients.

So “empty calories” typically refer to such calories from sugar or similar simple carbs like glucose.

Your body needs two things from eating: calories and nutrients. Calories are how your body does stuff, and nutrients are the stuff it does it with. Normally, these come together: if you eat, like, a salad, you’re going to get calories but also vitamins and minerals and such like. However, in the case of very processed foods, like drinking sugared soda, you can consume solely calories without getting any nutrients. This is what people refer to as empty calories: any food that is at least reasonably high in calories but which has little to no nutrients in it.

Actually, no energy is being measured.

“Empty calories” is more a NUTRITION phrase than an energy phrase. It is used by health coaches/nutritionists/dietitians to describe foods that have calories, but very few or no nutrients.

Something like potato chips, they have a lot of calories but no other real nutritional value. No vitamins, no minerals (at least not in meaningful amounts.

So those foods have calories, but are empty of other nutrients. So “empty calories”.

Unlike say, an Orange, which has calories and is a supply of vitamin C, as well as a bit of magnesium, calcium, and vitamin B6.