It makes sense, in a way, because carbohydrates, fats and, more generally, calories are the energy you need to perform at your best. However, at Baouw we're careful not to limit calories to a simple number. All foods contain calories, but not all calories are equal: there are empty calories and full calories. We focus the development of our ranges on the latter, because they provide the body with all the essential micronutrients it needs to function optimally, in terms of health and performance.
All foods contain calories, but not all calories are equal: there are empty calories and full calories.
THE CAST OF NUTRITIONISTS
- Benoit Nave: co-founder of Baouw and a leading figure in sports nutrition, who has accompanied great champions such as Xavier Thévenard, three-time winner of the UTMB.
- Jocelyn Guillot: a talented young nutritionist embodying the ‘Next Gen’, in contact with top-level sport and the latest innovations thanks to his work with the Groupama-FDJ cycling team and the Sidas-Matryx trail team.
1/ DEFINITION: WHAT ARE EMPTY CALORIES?
‘All foods contain calories, but they're not all the same’, says Benoit Nave. He explains: ‘Calories are very often summed up in a figure, a figure that obsesses us, but we need to go further than that. In fact, it's behind this figure that we can see the empty calories and the full calories’. In practical terms, empty calories are those provided by products that contain a lot of sugar and fat but little or none of the essential micronutrients needed for the body to function properly. Empty calories are therefore calories that offer sugars and fats - carbohydrates and lipids - but do not provide the vitamins, minerals, fibre or fatty acids that are supposed to go with them. In symmetry to empty calories are full calories: those which, as well as providing energy, supply the body with all the essential micronutrients mentioned above. In short, full calories are good calories for performance and health, while empty calories are ‘bad calories’.
‘Calories are often summed up in a figure, a figure that obsesses us, but we need to go further than that.'
2/ WHAT ESSENTIAL MICRONUTRIENTS DO EMPTY CALORIES NOT CONTAIN?
Jocelyn Guillot draws up an exhaustive list of the micronutrients that are essential for sportsmen and women to be in good health and perform well over the long term: ‘Empty calories lack: essential minerals such as potassium, magnesium, sodium & calcium; vitamins B, C & E; most trace elements such as manganese, selenium, zinc & iron; antioxidants; and fibre’.
3/ WHAT ARE THE FOOD TRAPS THAT CONTAIN EMPTY CALORIES?
Benoit Nave offers an extremely simple and concise answer to this question: ‘You'll find empty calories in all processed or ultra-processed products, in other words in all industrial food’. We've spared our nutritionist the details of the list of foods high in empty calories, lest he tire (he's preparing for Pierra Menta and every particle of preserved energy will be needed), but here it is, compiled by ourselves.
The following products should be avoided:
- Soft drinks
- Alcohol
- Industrial fruit juices or nectars
- Anything from fast food outlets
- Fried foods- Confectionery, sweets, candies, etc.
- Pastries, cakes and other industrial biscuits
- Refined and ultra-processed cereals
- Industrial sauces such as ketchup, mayonnaise, etc.
- Non-complete starchy foods such as white pasta, etc.
‘You'll find empty calories in all processed or ultra-processed products, in other words in all industrial food.
4/ ARE THERE MANY EMPTY CALORIES IN TRADITIONAL SPORTS NUTRITION?
Our co-founder has a very clear answer to this question: ‘Yes, and that's one of the reasons why we created Baouw! These days, whether it's the UTMB or the Tour de France, there's a real underlying trend: we hear a lot about calories and carbohydrates per hour. This is certainly important, but it tends to mask the absolutely fundamental role of micronutrients for health and performance. On the whole, today's ultra-processed energy gels and sports drinks are made from refined sugars and/or ultra-processed foods. They are therefore empty calories, providing the body with energy but not the elements it needs to use that energy properly.
5/ WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE TO AVOID EATING EMPTY CALORIES?
Jocelyn Guillot has some advice: ‘My first piece of advice on how to avoid falling into the trap of empty calories is to drastically reduce your consumption of industrial products high in refined sugars. Then: ‘You can also learn to read labels to identify the products that are most likely to contain these infamous empty calories. If the list of ingredients that make up a product is long, and/or if the lines ‘including sugars’ or ‘saturated fatty acids’ show high figures, then there's a good chance we're dealing with an ultra-processed diet.’ The young nutritionist with Team Sidas-Matryx and the Groupama-FDJ team also urges us to use the Nutri-score with a grain of salt: ‘This indicator does not take into account the level of processing of a product to judge its quality. I recommend the Siga index instead, which does. If we had to sum up all this advice in one sentence, it would be to favour ‘homemade’ preparations or preparations based on raw foods such as Baouw.
6/ WHY ARE EMPTY CALORIES BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE?
Benoit Nave is responsible for this explanation, which is intended to be as educational as possible: ‘Food is supposed to nourish. But nourishment in the global sense of the term: in other words, not just calories, but all the other ingredients your body needs to function optimally. Food must therefore contain not only calories, but also structural elements such as proteins and functional elements such as fatty acids’.
By this we mean that your diet should provide you with carbohydrates and fats, which are the body's main sources of energy, particularly during exercise, but that to use them properly you need the micronutrients that go with them. Our nutritionist illustrates his point with a powerful automotive metaphor: ‘Let's think of calories as our fuel: to use it, we need all the micronutrients. Without them, we have petrol, but we can't make the most of it. Inevitably, over time, the engine tires. And that's not good for your health, and therefore your performance’. The main risk associated with consuming empty calories is nutritional deficiency. For Benoit, this nutritional deficit can have very serious consequences in the sense that the body will draw on its reserves to find the elements that are lacking until these run dry: ‘Burn-out, depression, injury and metabolic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension or chronic inflammation are the most dramatic expressions of empty calories’. Jocelyn Guillot adds: ‘Empty calories can also lead to poorly managed weight gain. In fact, processing products means breaking down the fibres that make them up. These fibres are what control digestion: if you remove them, you lose the feeling of satiety. In other words, without fibre, hunger returns much more quickly.
7/ WHICH FOODS CONTAIN THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF CALORIES?
Once again, Benoit was quick to answer the question: ‘From the moment you talk about a food, it means that it contains no empty calories, in the sense that a food - by definition - is necessarily natural and therefore unprocessed. Insofar as it has not been modified by humans, the food retains all its natural micronutrients’. Unprocessed vegetables, legumes, fruit, cereals and oilseeds are the main source of ‘good calories’.
8/ WHY & HOW DO OUR BAOUW PRODUCTS CONTAIN NO EMPTY CALORIES?
Purees and energy bars avoid the trap of empty calories for the simple reason that they are made exclusively from raw foods. Raw foods that retain all their natural nutritional properties. ‘Our recipes contain no refined sugars, preservatives, additives or chemicals of any kind... Benoit Nave insists: ‘Baouw products only provide full calories, because they provide the calories needed for the effort but also everything else you need to use them. Jocelyn Guillot concurs: ‘The choice of organically produced foods also reinforces the nutritional density of Baouw energy products, as it has been proven that organic foods have a higher content of vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients than the same non-organic foods. In concrete terms, an organic apple provides more full calories than a non-organic apple!
‘Baouw products only provide full calories because they provide the calories needed for the effort but also everything you need on the side to use them.’
9/ WHAT MICRONUTRIENTS DO BAOUW PRODUCTS CONTAIN VIA FULL CALORIES, AND WHAT ARE THEIR MAIN FUNCTIONS?
En plus des calories – qu’il s’agisse de lipides ou de glucides – nos purées et barres énergétiques, par la diversité de leur gamme, contiennent :
- Minerals: potassium, magnesium, sodium, calcium
- Vitamins: vitamin B, vitamin C & vitamin E
- La plupart des oligo-éléments : manganèse, sélénium, zinc & fer
- Anti-oxidants
Benoit Nave concludes this nutrition focus by stressing the crucial importance of a varied diet to meet all your body's needs. It's the perfect way to introduce you to the packs containing our different recipes for purees and energy bars. A wide range of foods to ensure you don't miss out on any of the essential micronutrients that keep your body performing at its best and in good health.
