Digestible energy is a measure of the energy in food that an organism can actually absorb and use, calculated as the gross energy of the feed minus the energy lost in feces. It is a key concept in nutrition because not all of the energy contained in food is available to the body; some passes through undigested. Dige…
Digestible energy is a measure of the energy in food that an organism can actually absorb and use, calculated as the gross energy of the feed minus the energy lost in feces. It is a key concept in nutrition because not all of the energy contained in food is available to the body; some passes through undigested. Digestible energy provides a more accurate basis than gross energy for assessing the nutritional value of diets, formulating feeds, and meeting the energy requirements needed for maintenance, growth, reproduction, and activity. The concept is widely applied in both human and animal nutrition, where matching energy intake to needs is essential for health and performance. Within nutrition research, digestible energy connects food composition to physiological energy supply and to outcomes such as body condition and metabolic status. Work relevant to this field has examined the pastures grazed and body condition scores of horses, linking the energy available from forage to the maintenance of healthy body condition, an applied illustration of how dietary energy intake relates to nutritional status. Related research explores how foods, nutrients, and the gut environment influence energy availability and health. This page gathers peer-reviewed, open-access research within the broad field of nutrition relevant to digestible energy.
4 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
The 4 articles above have been cited 14 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Digestible Energy, linking to each citing work.