I saw somewhere that when eggs are boiled, they gain calories. Is there any possibility that this could be true? My eggs are 160 per 2 per the nutrition facts, but I was told that when hard boiled they will be 180 calories. Is this true at all? Thank you :)
No. Energy is inextricably tied to mass, and nothing is being added. Even if it absorbed some water, that wouldn’t add anything since water is calorie free.
The discrepancy you see is probably just semantics - they may have weighed the eggs differently, used different size eggs, etc.
Food doesn’t gain calories from adding heat or from cooking. You only get more calories by adding foods / ingredients to your meal. Heat may reduce the water content of food, thus concentrating it. For example, 100g of chicken (raw) will have fewer calories than 100g of chicken (cooked) because of the water boil-off.
Why would they gain calories if they’re hard boiled?
Calories are energy. “Energy cannot be created nor destroyed.” That’s the the first law of thermodynamics - an egg is an egg. You can’t make an egg gain more egg calories, nor can you reduce the calories of that egg.
Other methods of cooking may add calories to the egg, simply because people will cook them in butter or oil. Usually, it’s not a lot of calories you’re adding to the egg (unless you’re using a lot of butter)
Has this question been cross-posted to numerous other subreddits? Believe numerous people have already responded advising that cooking method does not affect calorie content, although this is something that you can easily verify with a simple google or nutirition app search.
Adding butter, lard or some other ingredients as part of any cooking method will change the caloric content, but that is not a result of the cooking method, but rather the additional calories from the additional ingredients.
Hard boiling is one of the lowest calorie ways to prepare an egg. If you fry it or poach it you are adding calories from the cooking oil or butter. Water has no calories. Boiling an egg does not increase the calories.If you make deviled eggs from them, adding mayonnaise etc, that could increase the calories, but the cooking process doesn’t increase the calories this case