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The calorie is a unit of energy that originated from the caloric theory of heat. [1] [2] The large calorie, food calorie, dietary calorie, kilocalorie, or kilogram calorie is defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one liter of water by one degree Celsius (or one kelvin).
A kilocalorie is the equivalent of 1000 calories or one dietary Calorie, which contains 4184 joules of energy.The notion that "a calorie is a calorie" is related to the idea that weight maintenance is a result of equalizing calorie input and calorie output, [4] and may lead to the practice of calorie restriction.
The calorie is defined as the amount of thermal energy necessary to raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1 Celsius degree, from a temperature of 14.5 °C, at a pressure of 1 atm. For thermochemistry a calorie of 4.184 J is used, but other calories have also been defined, such as the International Steam Table calorie of 4.1868 J.
This data is presented in kilojoules, as most countries today use the SI unit kilojoules as their primary measurement for food energy intake, [4] with the exception of the USA, [5] Canada, [6] and the UK, which use kilocalories or both. [7]
To facilitate evaluation by consumers, food energy values (and other nutritional properties) in package labels or tables are often quoted for convenient amounts of the food, rather than per gram or kilogram; such as in "calories per serving" or "kcal per 100 g", or "kJ per package".
Fat has a food energy content of 38 kilojoules per gram (9 kilocalories per gram) proteins and carbohydrates 17 kJ/g (4 kcal/g). [2] Water makes up a large proportion of the total mass ingested as part of a normal diet but it does not provide any nutritional value.
A nutritional Calorie is equivalent to a thousand chemical or thermodynamic calories (abbreviated "cal" with a lower case "c") or one kilocalorie (kcal). Because food energy is commonly measured in Calories, the energy density of food is commonly called "caloric density". [7]
the small calorie (gram-calorie, cal) is 4.184 J exactly. It was originally defined so that the specific heat capacity of liquid water would be 1 cal/(°C⋅g). The grand calorie (kilocalorie, kilogram-calorie, food calorie, kcal, Cal) is 1000 small calories, 4184 J exactly. It was defined so that the specific heat capacity of water would be 1 ...