A
group of students said that some energy, for example from sugars, was easily or
readily available and so readily used and therefore valuable, while the energy in some
food was hard or impossible to use and so was useless, for example, “you only utilise
the useful energy. The rest is converted into and stored as fat”, and “if we want lots of
energy… you eat lots of carbohydrates. But if you want a quick burst… you eat
sugary foods”. In lower years, students stated that they only absorbed the useful
energy or what they would need in the immediate future with the rest excreted.