Calories per Weight.

One of the most basic ideas of the Duh! Diet is: eat more of the stuff that's better for you.

Better for you means: more protein, vitamins and other good stuff.

It also means: fewer calories.

We often start every meal and snack with water, which has no calories, to remind ourselves of the idea of giving our body what it needs and filling up with substances lower in calories.

And we try to do this naturally, without a lot of chemicals and other 'fake' foods.

One way to do this is: eat foods with fewer calories by weight. The other is to eat foods with fewer calories by volume.

Food can have fewer calories by weight in two ways.

First, fat has more calories per gram--nine vs. four for protein and carbs. So foods with less fat has fewer calories.

Second, water adds bulk to foods and 'spaces out' the calories. It adds weight that has no calories.

Fruits and vegetables are loaded with water. A cucumber, famously, is 96% water. Not that an all-cucumber diet would be a good idea, but you get the picture.

Simply considering foods which have fewer calories per gram or per 100 grams (an easier measure) is thus a good way to figure out how often to each something, how much of it to eat.

For instance? (These are my calculations.)

calories per 100 grams
oil: 800 calories
walnuts: 700 calories
almonds: 576 calories
hard candy: 400 calories
corn cakes, caramel-flavored: 400 calories
sugar: 387 calories
popcorn: 300 calories
thin-crust pizza: 258 calories
All-Bran cereal: 258 calories
Fiber One cereal: 200 calories
brown rice: 162 calories
egg: 148 calories
chicken breast: 107 calories
corn: 94 calories
banana: 89 calories
cottage cheese: 80 calories
beans, white: 63 calories
beans, garbanzo: 62 calories
2% milk: 58 calories
plums: 46 calories
carrots: 41 calories
broccoli: 34 calories
red peppers: 26 calories
romaine lettuce: 18 calories
zucchini: 16 calories

Get the picture?

From 100 to 200 calories per 100 grams, eat moderately.

Below 100 calories per 100 grams, you can eat pretty freely--if the food is simple, natural, relatively unprocessed and healthy.

Above 200 calories per 100 grams--restrict yourself very strongly.

There's nothing magic about it.

It's just taking a rational approach which puts eating and health in a clear perspective to make decisions easier.

--E. R. O'Neill