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Kcal = Calorie?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Excuse the ignorance, on the back of all food packets in the energy section where it has kJ and kcal - are kcal calories?
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I hope not, or I have been trying to take in fewer than 1500000 calories per day!
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
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.