Whenever one is shopping at a grocery store or when eating in many restaurants, there often is listed the estimated calorie amount per a given food item. Additionally, food labels will often break down the amount of total fat, total carbohydrates, as well as other substances, in addition to the protein, if any, that the food is estimated to contain. The most important thing to take away from food and nutritional labels in general, is to recognize that simply making it a point to consume, for instance, 3000 calories a day is not necessarily going to help keep a given body, healthy. That is to say, those concentrating solely upon calories, but aren't paying much attention to what those calories consist of, are making an error in judgment, in which, their only saving grace, would be somehow maintaining a very balanced diet.
In point of fact, between fat consumption, carbohydrate consumption, and protein consumption, the most important of these, by far, is protein. What makes protein so vital is the fact that it is necessary in order to properly maintain good bodily health, because of proteins' critical role in helping to maintain muscle as well as to repair tissue, in addition to it being the required component that aids in the development of amino acids, which are needed in order to maintain the well-being of the body.
Another very vital attribute of protein consumption, is that a consistent and sustained consumption of protein does a markedly better job of reducing hunger, and therefore the additional snacking of foods, created by the body still feeling that it is still hungry is reduced. So that as reported by healthline.com, "One study in overweight men showed that increasing protein to 25% of calories reduced cravings by 60%, and reduced the desire to snack at night by half (Gunnars, 2016)."
Protein is a part of foods such as meat, milk, fish, poultry, lamb, eggs, nuts, and beans, in which a diet that makes sure to consume an adequate amount of those proteins will allow that body to maintain the appropriate amount of protein in the body tissue which is essential for good health. While the United States has a food pyramid chart, as well as having recommended foods to be consumed in a given day, in addition to recommendations of appropriate amounts of those foods to be eaten; what has happened though instead, because of such a strong emphasis upon caloric content in the minds of consumers, as well as the sheer abundance of cheap foods that are both heavily processed and are containing a multitude of empty calories, is that far too many people either concentrate on the calories being consumed to the exclusion of all else, or eat items that they believe are wholesome or good to consume, not recognizing that the nutritional content of those items are suspect.
It is only in very recent times, that we have seen that in western nations, that the fattest people are also the poorest people; whereas, the incidence of being overweight in poor people, historically, was extremely low, mainly because most poor people did not take in enough calories to ever become fat. Nowadays, however, certain calories of certain foods can be incredibly cheap to buy, so cheap, that those on limited budgets are able to consume not only way more calories than their body really needs, but these are often the type of calories that are not good for the body. So that, those that do take in enough protein day-in and day-out, have a strong preponderance of being overweight, in addition to the fact that because of the lack of protein in their diet, they are physically in much worse shape.