Empty calories

Empty calories are energy without nutritional value. Soda contains sugar, which gives us energy, but provides no nutrients.

YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast

Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.



Word of the Day: Empty calories

Recently, some of my students and I discussed childhood obesity and the possibility of a soda tax to help reduce cola consumption. 

This kind of tax may decrease childhood obesity caused by the intake of too many empty calories.


The term refers to calories we intake from food such as Ultra-Processed Foods with no nutritional value.


Soda contains a lot of sugar, giving us empty calories but not providing nutrients.

Lawmakers hope the soda tax will reduce children’s calorie intake by making soda more costly.


This post compares in readability to The New York Times.

It is likely to be understood by a reader who has at least a 10th-grade education (age 16).  

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 47.  

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.



Posted

in

by