Calories in Broccoli

Just the other day someone asked me: How many calories in broccoli?  Do I have to count those calories?  There are several diets such as a raw diet that do not count broccoli calories, but in this case the person was about to not count the calories but they failed to mention that the broccoli was covered in cheese.

Broccoli is a great food to eat on a diet. Raw and cooked.

At first I was shocked that someone trying to lose weight would not count these calories, but then I thought about some of my mistakes on a diet.  I found my mistakes by using my weight loss journal.

I digress. There are about 90 calories in a cup of raw broccoli and about 180 calories in a cup of cooked broccoli.  About twice as many calories in cooked broccoli?  How can that be?  Cooking breaks down complex fiber into simpler starches that can be digested by the human stomach.

The calories in broccoli casserole   is least twice as much as cooked broccoli.

One might think therefore that you should eat broccoli raw.  There is much discussion on this.  There are some good phytochemicals that are more common in raw broccoli, but then again the body can get to absorb more of the good things in broccoli when it has been cooked.  Why not eat a little of both.