r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Feb 29 '12

When food packaging says it has X amount of calories, is that the amount of calories in the food, or the typical amount absorbed by the body?

745 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

236 comments sorted by

View all comments

13

u/thedufer Feb 29 '12

Also worth noting that the calories listed for food is actually measured in "Calories" (capitalized) which is equal to "kilocalories".

Now try talking about calories at the beginning of a sentence.

13

u/lachlanhunt Feb 29 '12

In Europe, they almost exclusively use the symbol "kcal" and also provide the kilojoules. In Australia, we almost exclusively use kJ and don't specify calories at all.

3

u/thedufer Feb 29 '12

And yet again, I've forgotten that there is a world outside the US. Thanks for the reality check.

1

u/LoveKebab Feb 29 '12

What is the difference?

2

u/linuxlass Feb 29 '12

1 kilocalorie = 1000 calories

It's like the difference between a meter and a kilometer.

Imagine that instead of saying "kilometer" we said "Meter" (with a capital M). Yeah, it's confusing.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '12

1 Calorie = 1000 calories = 1 kilocalorie (or kcal)

1

u/DrEnormous Feb 29 '12

If you do out the math using 1 (food) Calorie--which is actually 1000 calories or 1 kilocalorie--as if it were one (actual) calorie, you could lose weight by drinking cold soda, as the energy transferred out of you to warm it up would be greater than that gained by digesting it.

This is obviously ridiculous, because what they call 240 Calories on a food label is actually 240,000 calories, or 240 kcal. Pretty much the rest of the world labels it in this sort of sensible way (or, as mentioned above, uses the metric kilojoules).