# How many calories does the body burn warming butter pecan ice cream to body temp? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 6, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668 "2010-07-06T03:13:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kilmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kilmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilmore)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/1 "2010-07-06T03:13:28Z")
If I’m going to try to justify it, I need all the information. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/2 "2010-07-06T03:42:26Z")
How are you warming it? ---
**Author:** ![Kilmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kilmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilmore)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/3 "2010-07-06T03:43:57Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > How are you warming it? Inside my tummy. That’s why the body has to burn calories to warm it to body temp. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/4 "2010-07-06T03:44:20Z")
From wikipedia: > [@](#): > > The **calorie** (or **gram calorie** ) is a pre-[SI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI)[metric](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system) unit of [energy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy), defined as the amount of energy required to heat one gram of water by one degree Celcius So all you have to do is measure the temperature of the ice cream, and yourself, and then weight the ice cream, and you’ll have the answer. OR an approximation, as the numebrs will be slightly different for pure water as they will be for your water/cream/sugar/etc. mixture. But I thinkt he result will be close enough for justifications’ sake. One of the many strategies our ballet instructors taught us for staying slim was to always be drinking water, and get it as cold as possible, whenever possible. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/5 "2010-07-06T03:48:45Z")
Your body spends more energy trying to cool off than to warm up. You’re probably saving calories by making your body not have to work as hard to stay cool. Sorry. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/6 "2010-07-06T05:23:55Z")
This issue is much discussed, often in the context of the “ice cold light beer”. The answer to your simple question as posed is given by **TruCelt**. However, usually this question is asked in the context of dieting. In that context, the relevant question is not “how many calories will it take to warm the ice cream” but “how many _extra_ calories will be burned by my body to warm the ice cream”. Many fall into the trap of assuming these questions are functionally the same (Cecil probably included) but they are not. Your body is a net voluntary exporter of heat most of the time, when in comfortable surroundings. Your body’s first reaction to cold is to vasoconstrict ie reduce the amount of heat it is allowing to escape to the environment, rather than to increase heat creation by shivering etc. Consequently, the answer to the question that I suspect underlies your enquiry ranges upward from “none at all” to a maximum figure you could calculate as **TruCelt** suggests, depending upon your level of physical activity and the ambient temperature and how warmly you are dressed. **Mosier** I’ve heard many assert what you say, and no one come even close to providing a cite. Indeed it beggars belief that what you say would be true. What possible method of cooling off do you think your body does or could use that would use signficant energy? ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/7 "2010-07-06T07:34:31Z")
If you’re going to do the math, remember that the “calories” listed on the label of the butter pecan ice cream are in fact **kilocalories.** That is, one food calorie is the amount of energy needed to warm one _kilogram_ of water by one degree Celsius. The confusion between the two units is what leads people come up with the idea that drinking ice cold beer is an effective weight loss plan. Combine this with what **Princhester** said and you’ll find that it isn’t even close. Even ice cold water is only a very small calorie loss for your body at best. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/8 "2010-07-06T07:35:26Z")
You should know that a dietary Calorie is really a kilocalorie. That is, one dietary Calorie is the amount of energy required to raise a kilogram (not a gram) of water one degree Celsius. By convention, the word “calorie” is usually written with a capital “C” when referring to dietary Calories. I just looked up the nutrition facts for Haagen Dazs butter pecan ice cream. It has 310 dietary Calories per 106 gram serving. This gives about 2925 non-dietary calories (or 2.925 dietary Calories) per gram. I don’t know the specific heat of ice cream, but let’s assume that it’s the same as water. If freezer temperature is about -18 Celsius, it would take 55 non-dietary calories to bring one gram of ice cream from frozen to body temperature, or 0.055 dietary Calories. The food energy of the ice cream is about 53 times the energy it takes to warm it to body temperature (again, assuming that ice cream has a specific heat of one). ---
**Author:** ![rockypg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aeb1de/32.png) [@rockypg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rockypg)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/9 "2010-07-06T15:02:14Z")
Specific heat capacities of various food stuff: > **[Food and Foodstuff - Specific Heat](http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-capacity-food-d_295.html)** > > Specific heat of common food and foodstuff like apples, bass, beef, pork and many more. Unfortunately, there is no “butter pecan ice cream” on that list, but looks like the closest thing is Cream whose SHC is 0.9 Kcal/kg°C. So the actual amount of energy spent in raising the temperature of icecream would be: Q = Weight of Icecream x SHC of icecream x Temperature difference x efficiency of human body in converting food into heat Q = weight in KG \* 0.9 \* ΔT in °C Kilocalories or dietary calories EDIT: oops there’s icecream as well on there, at 0.74 Kcal/kg°C ---
**Author:** ![TerpBE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@TerpBE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TerpBE)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/10 "2010-07-06T18:09:01Z")
I remember in seventh grade, our science textbook showed a big steak dinner with a large glass of ice water, and it said that you’d burn all of the calories in the dinner by drinking the glass of ice water. It makes me wonder how much other stuff in our textbooks was also completely wrong. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/11 "2010-07-06T18:29:11Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > However, usually this question is asked in the context of dieting. In that context, the relevant question is not “how many calories will it take to warm the ice cream” but “how many _extra_ calories will be burned by my body to warm the ice cream”. Many fall into the trap of assuming these questions are functionally the same (Cecil probably included) but they are not. Unca Cecil dealt with the question back in the early days (it was in one of his first two books, and dealt with dieting by burning off the calories in a Scotch on the rocks). He most definitely did **not** fall into the trap; and he is responsible for my knowing about the concept of a kilocalorie (C). ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/12 "2010-07-07T03:31:43Z")
I haven’t read the books, but I was referring to [this column](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1253/is-it-possible-to-diet-with-beer). Cecil makes no mention at all of the fundamental point that I make above, and appears prepared to make precise calculations involving volume and temperature of liquid drunk and kilocalories “you would burn off” in the context of dieting. If Cecil ever revisited the question he might weasel by saying that he never specifically says that other confounding factors are not involved but let’s not beat around the bush: the column is basically wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/13 "2010-07-07T03:34:57Z")
> [@TerpBE](#): > > I remember in seventh grade, our science textbook showed a big steak dinner with a large glass of ice water, and it said that you’d burn all of the calories in the dinner by drinking the glass of ice water. This question is very commonly used in physics exams dreamed up no doubt by physics teachers who just want the nice, neat “one calorie is the amount of energy required to heat one gram of water by one degree Celcius” answer but have no clue whatever of the biological complexities they are introducing. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/14 "2010-07-07T19:23:58Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I haven’t read the books, but I was referring to [this column](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1253/is-it-possible-to-diet-with-beer). Cecil makes no mention at all of the fundamental point that I make above, and appears prepared to make precise calculations involving volume and temperature of liquid drunk and kilocalories “you would burn off” in the context of dieting. If Cecil ever revisited the question he might weasel by saying that he never specifically says that other confounding factors are not involved but let’s not beat around the bush: the column is basically wrong. Wrong HOW, exactly? As shown in your link, he blows the question off at first, and doesn’t even make a pretense of offering an answer until he prints the follow-up letter from the guy who wants to be parsimonious with his math and posits the consumption of about two-sevenths of a standard can of beer. This is Cecil’s response to that guy: > [@](#): > > Got a pile of mail about this, including notes from a couple of knuckleheads who thought Cecil didn’t know the difference between food calories (kilocalories) and calorie calories. Come on, that’s one of the few things from tenth grade health class I remember. (The “miracle of childbirth” film also made an indelible impression.) Somewhat disconcerting was the fact that, while everyone grasped the nub of the answer–i.e., Mister Beer Lover’s calorie calculations were off by a factor of 1,000–everybody who tried to figure out how many calories you would burn off came up with a different number. The correct answer, based on 110 kilocalories per 355-milliliter (12-ounce) can of ice-cold (0 degrees Celsius) Bud Light: 13 kilocalories. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-calories-does-the-body-burn-warming-butter-pecan-ice-cream-to-body-temp/545668/15 "2010-07-08T00:21:30Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Wrong HOW, exactly? Wrong in that he picks up the units error in the calculation, while totally missing the point which is that the entire calculation is based on an incorrect premise. The correct answer to this question is: 1/ Unless you are already exceptionally cold, your body won’t use any additional calories just because the food you eat is cold. Your body heats cold food using (or using largely) waste heat from processes that would be continuing whether you ate the food cold or not. Any attempt to use a simple temperature/mass calculation to determine “extra” calories used due to the food being cold is on based on a fundamental misconception. 2/ As a very minor aside, many people who do attempt this fundamentally misconceived calculation do it wrong because they make a unit error involving the difference between “food calories” and calories. Cecil correctly picks up 2/ and in doing so he is not saying something that is wrong exactly. But he says this is “the nub of the answer” when on any sensible view it can’t possibly be: how can a unit error in a calculation that it doesn’t even make sense to apply be the nub of an answer?