Does cold food use more calories to digest?

[kakoka]

A calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise 1g of water 1 degree, so does that mean that colder foods would take more energy to digest as they have to be raised to body temperature from say frozen or something?

I know that a food calorie is really 1,000 calories, so the difference wouldn't be too great, but is there a difference at all?

What about eating food that is very hot, would that result in more caloric intake?

[Schrödinger's hat]

A calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise 1g of water 1 degree, so does that mean that colder foods would take more energy to digest as they have to be raised to body temperature from say frozen or something?

I know that a food calorie is really 1,000 calories, so the difference wouldn't be too great, but is there a difference at all?

Depends. If it's hot then your body is spending energy on cooling. If you eat something cold then that does the cooling for you and you actually use less energy.

If it's cold then you will use a little bit more energy, but this is comparable to taking off your hat or socks for a few minutes.

Your body is also quite good at maintaining heat, so you may just make it go into heat conservation mode and wind up with cold fingers and burn exactly as many calories as you would otherwise.

What about eating food that is very hot, would that result in more caloric intake?

No.

Although concentrated heat can be partially converted into useful energy as it diffuses (this is how a car engine works, the petrol burning makes hot gas which does work as it comes into equilibrium with the surroundings), your body has no way of doing this.

It could, however, result in you spending less energy heating yourself.

If you are shivering and drink some hot cocoa you will spend fewer calories getting warm than if you drink iced chocolate.