Stupid calorie question

Owen

Say I know I have to eat ... 2000 calories a day. If a food is listed as having 430 kcal, does that mean 430 thousand calories? Obviously not, but what does it mean?

BossArky

1 calorie is the energy required to raise one cc of water 1 degree celsius (or 1 gram of H20 - whatever you prefer).

A Kcals is usually written as 1 Calorie.

All sport and food related activies are usually measured in Calories, but people mistakenly write them with a small "c".

For scientific purposes you might want to work with a finer level of detail such as calories. This is largely impractical in day to day fitness and dieting.

Tootsie

To get the calories from kilojoules do you divide by 4.1,I was trying to work out what 1 sqaure of Lindt chocolate is in WW points,I made it at 2.5 ?? Its a 10g piece?

EileenG

Yes, Calories are roughly a quarter of Joules. Don't know how to work out WW points, they are based on a combination of calories and fat grams, so all chocolate would be high. Nuts and salmon are also very high!