Like I said, do a little study in actual nutrition.
Start with Pediatric Diabetes and the diet connected with it.
A starch calorie is not the same as a protein calorie to the body, my FRiend. By taking it down to thermodynamics, you overlook how the body reacts to it. People work hard to complicate it, because it’s much more complicated than you make out.
If all we needed was a formula of “calorie in/calorie out” and understanding that the average human needs 2000 calories to maintain weight, those people who have lived for years on 1000 calories a day (linked in 111) would have starved to death. It’s what they ate that kept them alive and healthy.
Burning it on a dish is not feeding it to a human.
I don't know from where you received your PhD, but if Naturopathy has anything to do with nutrition, they shortchanged you on this subject. Anyone studying graduate level human nutrition will understand what I've posted. Unfortunately, and for reasons I don't fully understand, nutrition today has become a convoluted mess. I think some if it has to do with the process of obtaining grants but there is more to it than that. Whatever the cause, what passes for science, especially nutrition, these days is disturbing.