Edited to give a real answer~ Gases can/do store energy and that energy can be harnessed via chemical reactions like burning. A “calorie” technically speaking is short hand for the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. You’ve probably heard the term BTU before too, same thing but much bigger. A BTU (British thermal unit) is the energy it takes to raise one pound of water one degree F. Whether or not a person can absorb that energy is a different matter all together. I have no idea about the nutrition side of it all. But, yeah, sure, calories can be stored in gaseous elements.
I think the question is if calories can take the form of a gas like it can solid or liquid. Like, just by breathing them in somehow.
Yeah, I decided to actually answer, it is a question from my wheelhouse I guess.
Calories are not “a thing” but a measurement unit for energy. So yes. everything “has calories”.
Everything with energy, sure… But I’m not sure that all matter has energy. Water, for example, has zero calories/energy. In fact, cold water effectively has negative calories as your body has to use energy to bring itself back up to temperature.
But I’m not sure that all matter has energy.
It has. If it has mass, it has energy, that is a core principle of how matter is defined scientifically.
Can you ELI5 why water has no calories, which is also a unit of energy? Do we just not absorb it?
Can you ELI5 why water has no calories, which is also a unit of energy?
Calories are a very specific type of measuring energy, especially when used in the context of nutrition. When nutritionists say that water has 0 calories, they mean that water has no nutritional energy.
But when looking at it from a non-nutrition perspective water has calories.
When you say, “something has X calories”, it’s a shorthand of saying “something has an equivalent of X times the amount of energy that is needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C.”
From a physical point of view water ALWAYS has energy (that you can express in calories) because something with mass can never have no energy.
Yes, your body doesn’t have a means to break down water and extract energy from it
Yes. Natural gas, used in stoves and heating systems, is a good example.
I don’t think you can just aerosolize a cheeseburger and inhale it to replace a meal, if that’s what you’re asking.
Ethanol has caloric value and you can absorb it by breathing, not sure what other substances that applies to though.
Well… 80% of the weight humans lose is lost through the breath as CO2… Does that count?
I used to joke that I would cheat on my diet by sniffing freshly baked pastries… Say it ain’t actually so!
