Is there a some sort of food with such energy in it, that eating e.g. 100 grams of it will produce an increment of body mass greater than 100 grams?
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Your question body doesn't match the title. I've answered the body, which refers to mass gain vs food mass– Chris HAug 19, 2019 at 17:29
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2If you eat 100 g of salt, you are also going to drink a lot of water...– TonyAug 19, 2019 at 18:58
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@Chris, you're right. May I ask you to suggest me a better title?– MarianDAug 19, 2019 at 19:30
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How about "Is it possible to gain more body mass from a food than the dad if the food itself?"– Chris HAug 20, 2019 at 6:10
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@Chris, thanks, I just used it for changing the title.– MarianDAug 20, 2019 at 11:07
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2 Answers
In the short term, yes, if you allow unlimited water.
Carb loading before endurance exercise increases the body's glycogen stores. The glycogen itself is made from the carbohydrates you consume, but storing glycogen stores several times its own mass in water. Ideal foods for carb loading are almost pure starch, hence the massive plates of pasta eaten before marathons.
This is the first energy store the body calls on, so it can't really be kept up for long.
Short answer - no. Due to Conservation of Mass, your body cannot gain more grams of mass than it consumes.
Long answer - maybe. Eating certain foods could cause you to retain more water, more unprocessed waste in your colon, etc. However, if you account for all the mass from all sources, then it must always balance out.
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Also in your second category, I guess a very energy-dense food might be more energy-dense than the way the body stores energy (e.g. pure sugar versus fat), so that if the body were to store the energy it gained from the food, the mass required to do so would be greater than the food's mass.– dbmag9Aug 19, 2019 at 16:18
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This isn't technically wrong, but it's very misleading (at least in the short term) unless you count all the water you drink as part of the food mass.– Chris HAug 19, 2019 at 16:34
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@ChrisH - That's exactly what I was getting at with my second point - if you are including water weight, then you need to count the grams of water that you consume. If you count every gram of everything in and out, they will balance out. The important point is that you can't consume 1 lb of ice cream and gain 2 pounds.– mbeckishAug 19, 2019 at 17:38
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@dbmag9 - No. Your body cannot take 1 gram of x and turn it into 2 grams of y, no matter what x and y are. It can take 1 gram of x and 1 gram of y, and turn it into 2 grams of z, though. But then you need to count both x and y as "in" grams, and z as your "out" grams.– mbeckishAug 19, 2019 at 17:42
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@mbeckish I know – I was agreeing with you! I was just providing another case which would fit in your second category (and which, judging by the accepted answer, appears to be what the OP was thinking of when asking).– dbmag9Aug 19, 2019 at 23:12