vegetable calorie counting

[wbsgn12]

to what extent do you count vegetable calories? I personally don't count lettuce,spinach,broccoli,peppers,or onions. I also eat a lot of them, especially on my low-carb, reduced calorie days. In particular, I eat a ton of broccoli and onions. Would you count these calories?

Broccoli really seems like a "free" food to me, but I would concede that onions in large quantity might warrant counting. thoughts?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Me personally? I count them, but I don't suggest it's that important for most people (except for figure/bodybuilders) unless overall fiber content for the diet is suspect. It's just not needed, in general, to get the results that most people desire.

On the either hand, none of the foods are "free" in the sense that they all provide glucose and calories and hell, even fiber gets converted to short chain fatty acids in the large bowel and gets absorbed as up to 10% of our daily energy intake. But yea, I wouldn't count them unless prepping for a physique-related competition or aiming for ketosis on that style of diet.