Stick Figure is supposedly the diary the author kept when she had anorexia. She gets obsessed with the idea that steam coming off of food has calories that could get into her stomach and make her fat. Ditto people’s breath when she smells food on it.
Is this true or not?
Isn’t steam by definition water? Water has no calories.
If the steam has an odor, then it contains organic molecules.
Most organic molecules can be broken down by the body to produce energy.
Calories are a measure of energy content, so yes, smelly steam does contain calories.
The number of calories you inhale with a good sniff will be tiny, like 1 X 10^-6 Cal per sniff, but still, a nonzero value.
True, but if the ordinary air has an odor than it too has calories. And assuming that she has to breath something, we can’t be sure that breathing the steam as opposed to the ordinary air represents an incremental increase in caloric consumption without further data.
:smack:
Sure, it probably takes more calories to inhale than you can get out of a smell, even if you breathe hard, on purpose.
Was the author’s real name Maris Crane?
I don’t think it would matter. You don’t absorb calories through steam in your lungs any more than you absorb calories through your skin when you’re holding an apple.
Crap. This was the week I was going to give Breathairianism a shot.
Lungs are optimized for gas exchange. Skin isn’t.
Look up alcohol vaporizers. Ethanol and its associated calories get in thru the lungs just fine.
never mind