Term:kalories: Difference between revisions
(Created page with "===Why spell kalories with a k?=== A kalorie is a food calorie. The 'k' is to prevent confusion with an older historical unit "calorie", which is 1000 times smaller. When someone says "An apple has 95 calories", technically the "proper" wording would be "An apple has 95 kilocalories". But that could easily confuse people more, as "95 kilocalories" sounds like enough food for a hundred meals! So a better solution is to say "An apple has 95 kalories" - the "kilo" is impli...") |
|||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
===Why spell kalories with a k?=== | ===Why spell kalories with a k?=== | ||
A kalorie is a food calorie. The 'k' is to prevent confusion with an older historical unit "calorie", which is 1000 times smaller. | A kalorie is a ''food calorie''. The 'k' is to prevent confusion with an older historical unit "calorie", which is 1000 times smaller. | ||
Most scientific reports instead say "kilocalorie" or "kcal", which is technically correct, but could easily confuse people in other ways. So we prefer "kalorie", which is pronounced the same as "calorie", but spelled with a pedantic 'k' for 'kilo'. | |||
The 'k' is only needed when specifying numbers (i.e. "An apple has 95 kalories." or "This diet is 2400 kalories/day."). The 'k' is not needed for general comparisons (i.e. "Most of the calories in these chips come from fat."). | |||
Revision as of 15:14, 24 August 2022
Why spell kalories with a k?
A kalorie is a food calorie. The 'k' is to prevent confusion with an older historical unit "calorie", which is 1000 times smaller.
Most scientific reports instead say "kilocalorie" or "kcal", which is technically correct, but could easily confuse people in other ways. So we prefer "kalorie", which is pronounced the same as "calorie", but spelled with a pedantic 'k' for 'kilo'.
The 'k' is only needed when specifying numbers (i.e. "An apple has 95 kalories." or "This diet is 2400 kalories/day."). The 'k' is not needed for general comparisons (i.e. "Most of the calories in these chips come from fat.").