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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.
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".
What does that 'k' actually stand for?
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.
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.
The United States had the highest availability with 3654 kilo calories per person in 1996. [3] This increased further in 2002 to 3770. [4] During the late 1990s, Europeans had 3394 kilo calories per person, in the developing areas of Asia there were 2648 kilo calories per person, and in sub-Sahara Africa people had 2176 kilo calories per person ...
All macronutrients except water are required by the body for energy, however, this is not their sole physiological function. The energy provided by macronutrients in food is measured in kilocalories, usually called Calories, where 1 Calorie is the amount of energy required to raise 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius. [27]