Cals vs Kcals

This topic contains 3 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by 2fast2furious 10 years, 4 months ago.

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jeffR

1:37 am
1 Aug 14
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I bought and read the first book last year. One thing that still confuses me is the talk on the doco and on this site of calories (cals) on the one hand, and kcals in the book. I am specifically referring to the calories counter towards the end of the book.

Example, in the book 100g of avocado = 193 kcals (page 183 in my kindle edition). The table clearly states that the figure is KCals.

Now, a kcal = 1000 calories.

If that is correct, I would be consuming 183,000 calories when eating 100g of avocado. This does not make sense. Or does it?

Is the use of Kcal wrong in the book?

NickyF

2:00 am
1 Aug 14
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Hi Jeff

The common usage of ‘calorie’ is actually the kilocalorie and abbreviated ‘C’. For the pedantic, base unit calories are abbreviated ‘c’. Kilocalories are 1000 times the energy of calories as you correctly state.

If you are scientifically inclined you will of course know that the official SI unit for energy is the joule (J) but they are also so small that the kJ is the usual unit for everyday life.

HTH
Nicky

Dummerchen

8:35 am
1 Aug 14
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In everyday life people talk about calories but what they really mean are kilocalories. Unless you are writing or reading a scientific paper where this difference matters, you can safely assume that anyone asking for the calorie content of chicken breast wants to know the kilocalories.

2fast2furious

9:16 am
1 Aug 14
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I think it’s common to use ‘Calories’ with a capital C to mean kilocalories.