How many calories does a standard whole blood donation burn?

Fosheze@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 152 points –

So I just went and donated blood again and durring the recovery period it occured to me that it takes quite a bit of work for your body to regenerate that lost blood volume and the actual blood cells. Regrowing that many cells seems like it would be fairly energetically intensive. So how many calories does producing all those new blood cells actually consume? Is there even a way to know that?

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The number floating around the web is 650 calories but I haven't been able to track down the actual source.

(Google Scholar is no help at all. Whoever these UCSD researchers are, I have no bloody clue.)

So I can shotgun two pints of beer after a donation (gotta rehydrate!) and still be a couple hundred calories ahead? Win-win!

Jokes aside, you shouldn't drink alcohol the day before and after your donation

Hmm. Not as much as I hoped. You could probably eat that many calories in the free snacks they have afterwords without anyone even looking at you funny.

There is no good way to outpace calorie consumption with activity. It is far far easier for humans to consume usable calories than it is for us to spend them.

In our ancestors this meant that we were able to go a long time between good meals during times of scarcity and still survive, but today it just means that if you're worried about calories you should start in the kitchen, not the gym

Eat the snacks before donating. That way your blood glucose spikes and you 'burn' maximum calories.