Difference between kcal and cal?

Dr_Brian_Cocks

I see some places say they are the same, but I would have thought 1kcal = 1000 calories.

So when it says I burn 60kcal on a bike, how many cals is that?

Pace2008

You are technically correct, but in nutrition, calories and kilocaloriess are used interchangeably. So, for your purposes, if it says you burned 60kcal on a bike , you've burned 60 calories in the commonly understood sense of the term.

Ri_Nollaig

Kcal or Cal is 1000 times cal. Upper and lower case C used to make the distinction.
For all nutritional uses, Kcal/Cal is used.

Wikipedia never lies! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie.

• The small calorie or gram calorie (symbol: cal) is the approximate amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.
• The large calorie, kilogram calorie, dietary calorie, nutritionist's calorie or food calorie (symbol: Cal, equiv: kcal), which is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. The large calorie is thus equal to 1000 small calories or one kilocalorie (symbol: kcal).

rubadub

They are different by a factor of 1000 so its usually very obvious.

Some manufacturers will purposely display high calorie estimated usage to attract you to their machines. Just like "vanity sizing" in clothes where they might label size 16 jeans as size 12, so a woman might buy that brand delighted that shes a "size 12". In this case you might buy a brand X rowing machine, since it takes very little effort to get the display to say you burned 1000kcal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_energy#Energy_usage_in_the_human_body

a manufacturer of rowing equipment shows calories released from 'burning' food as four times the actual mechanical work, plus 300 kcal (1,300 kJ) per hour,[17] which amounts to about 20% efficiency at 250 watts of mechanical output. It can take up to 20 hours of little physical output (e.g. walking) to "burn off" 4,000 kcal (17,000 kJ)[18] more than a body would otherwise consume. For reference, each pound of body fat equates to approximately 3,500 calories.

Dr_Brian_Cocks

Thanks very much!