Kcal = Calorie?

Former Member

Excuse the ignorance, on the back of all food packets in the energy section where it has kJ and kcal - are kcal calories?

Former Member

yes

Former Member

Originally posted by kaffrin
yes

Aren't they kilocalories?

Former Member

Originally posted by piccolo
Aren't they kilocalories?

I hope not, or I have been trying to take in fewer than 1500000 calories per day!

Former Member

Very true. And no idea how many I eat. Hmph.

Former Member

kilocalories are the same as calories... calories is just the shortened name for them...

Former Member

The basic unit of energy is the Joule and is shown as the symbol J or kilojoules (thousand Joules) kJ. The calorie is just another way of expressing the same thing and 1 calorie=4.186 Joules so you don't need large numbers all the time.

Laziness or ignorance makes most people refer to the kcal (thousands of calories) simply as calorie, which it is not. When you eat something that has 100 calories, you are actually consuming 100 kcal, 100000 calories! Note that since humans aren't 100% efficient, we don't use all that energy in a useful way, otherwise we'd be even fatter than we are now!

Hope this clears up any confusion

Former Member

Originally posted by The Philosopher
Hope this clears up any confusion

no actually you've confused me i have to times whatever i see as calories on the back of my food by a thousand?

Former Member

Originally posted by lipsy
no actually you've confused me i have to times whatever i see as calories on the back of my food by a thousand?

No.

People use the word 'calorie' has the shortened version of kcal, and the common usage of the word is as kcal. So if the pack of food says 100 kcal, that is the equivalent to 100 "calories", not 100,000.

A kcal= calorie in basic terms, unless you are a scientific pedant.