kcal to calories?

SAC0O3
SAC0O3 Posts: 95
edited October 5 in Food and Nutrition
Exactly how many kcal is in a calorie?
I am looking at this cod we have and it says it is 84kcal. How many calories is that?

Replies

  • HMonsterX
    HMonsterX Posts: 3,000 Member
    Calories are always listed as "kcal".

    1 "kcal" is one calorie for our calorie tracking purposes.
  • Vaanja
    Vaanja Posts: 163 Member
    Scientifically it means kilo-calorie, but it means the same thing as calorie.
  • Umeboshi
    Umeboshi Posts: 1,637 Member
    Calories are kilo-calories and vice versa. It's the same thing.
  • deathstarclock
    deathstarclock Posts: 512 Member
    in other words, 1000 calories is 1 kilocalorie

    much like 1000 meters is 1 kilometer

    something to do with the metric system...
  • auntiebabs
    auntiebabs Posts: 1,754 Member
    in other words, 1000 calories is 1 kilocalorie

    much like 1000 meters is 1 kilometer

    something to do with the metric system...

    8400 calories seems an awful lot for a serving of fish?
  • deathstarclock
    deathstarclock Posts: 512 Member
    in other words, 1000 calories is 1 kilocalorie

    much like 1000 meters is 1 kilometer

    something to do with the metric system...

    8400 calories seems an awful lot for a serving of fish?

    that is correct. but your body burns about the same amount of calories. if your diet is 2000 calories, its actually 2,000,000. hence the reason for the conversion. that many zeroes will confuse people left and right.
  • deathstarclock
    deathstarclock Posts: 512 Member
    i can explain more but its so late for me that i can't really focus on the rest of the explanation. maybe tomorrow.
  • Alee4nia
    Alee4nia Posts: 168 Member
    1 KCAL = 1 CAL
  • keenslk
    keenslk Posts: 126
    did you mean kilojoul rather than Kcal?

    A kilojoul is different to a calorie

    if so this website translate http://www.unitconversion.org/energy/kilojoules-to-calories-nutritional-conversion.html
    :smile:
  • Kym1610
    Kym1610 Posts: 328 Member
    if you mean Kilojuol it is 4.184kj = 1kcal
    1kcal = 1000 cal
  • jskaggs1971
    jskaggs1971 Posts: 371 Member
    One calorie (in SI units) is the energy required to heat 1 cc (that's the volume of a teeny box one centimeter on a side) of water by 1 degree centigrade. It's not a lot of energy. For some reason, much of the diet/nutrition world refers to Calories (note the capitol C), which are the equivalent of 1000 little-c calories, or one kilocalorie, which is abbreviated kcal.

    So, fur purposes of diet and exercise, 1 Calorie = 1000 calories = 1kcal.

    As an engineer, this drives me nuts. I don't understand why we can't just call them kcal and be consistent with the rest of science.
  • Elizabeth_C34
    Elizabeth_C34 Posts: 6,376 Member
    One calorie (in SI units) is the energy required to heat 1 cc (that's the volume of a teeny box one centimeter on a side) of water by 1 degree centigrade. It's not a lot of energy. For some reason, much of the diet/nutrition world refers to Calories (note the capitol C), which are the equivalent of 1000 little-c calories, or one kilocalorie, which is abbreviated kcal.

    So, fur purposes of diet and exercise, 1 Calorie = 1000 calories = 1kcal.

    As an engineer, this drives me nuts. I don't understand why we can't just call them kcal and be consistent with the rest of science.

    I totally feell the same way! :smile:
  • QueenStromba
    QueenStromba Posts: 57 Member
    Actually I think in this case a calorie should have been defined as the energy required to heat one liter of water by 1 degree which would have made a millicalorie the energy required to heat one milliliter by 1 degree.
  • jskaggs1971
    jskaggs1971 Posts: 371 Member
    But that then breaks the definition of a lot of useful energy / work units. I didn't invent the SI -- I just use it. It stems back to the times BEFORE the adoption of SI units, when a lot of scientists used the cgs (calorie gram second) system instead of SI units.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie
This discussion has been closed.

Categories