What is the difference between a calorie and kilojoules?

Answer 1

Calories can be broadly classified as

1.large calories

2.small calories

1. Large calories : This is also called as kilogram calorie, dietary calorie, nutritionist's calorie or food calorie.

"It is the energy required to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 degree C under 1 atmospheric pressure."

In conversion, 1kcal = 1 cal (in terms of large cal)

2. Small Calories : This is also called as gram calorie. (the other term you are refering in the question, 'calorie')

"It is the energy required to raise the temperature of 1gm of water by 1 degree C under 1 atmospheric pressure"

In conversion, 1Kcal = 1000 cal (interms of small cal)

So, when you are talking about 'calories', it refers to small calories.

And when you are talking about food calories or calories related to dietary facts, it refers to 'large calories', and remember the conversion holds.

Answer 2

A calorie is defined by how much energy it takes to raise one gram of water one degree celsius. A joule is how much work is required to produce one watt of power for one second. To convert between the two, 1 calorie is equal to 4.184 joules.

Answer 3

Calories can be broadly classified as

1.large calories

2.small calories

1. Large calories : This is also called as kilogram calorie, dietary calorie, nutritionist's calorie or food calorie.

"It is the energy required to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 degree C under 1 atmospheric pressure."

In conversion, 1kcal = 1 cal (in terms of large cal)

2. Small Calories : This is also called as gram calorie. (the other term you are refering in the question, 'calorie')

"It is the energy required to raise the temperature of 1gm of water by 1 degree C under 1 atmospheric pressure"

In conversion, 1Kcal = 1000 cal (interms of small cal)

So, when you are talking about 'calories', it refers to small calories.

And when you are talking about food calories or calories related to dietary facts, it refers to 'large calories', and remember the conversion holds.

Answer 4

The difference between Calories and kilojoules is very much the same difference between metres and feet. They are just two different measures of the same thing, energy. It can be quite confusing though as often food is measured in kilojoules and exercise in Calories. This makes it tough to compare the two, but let's have a look at how it all works: 1 Calorie = 4.184 kilojoules (note that Calorie is with a capital 'C' as this actually means 1000 calories, which is the way we are used to seeing it) Often you will want to convert kilojoules into Calories (or vise versa) and so the easiest way is to just divide the kilojoules figure by 4 to get a rough figure. If you want to be exact you need to divide by 4.184. So in an example 2343 kilojoules = 2343/4.184 = 600 Calories

Answer

A calorie is a unit of energy used in the obsolete cgsA system of measurement. A joule is a unit of energy used in the current SI system of measurement. For some reason, people in the food industry insist on calling kilocalories 'Calories'!

Answer 5

A calorie is defined by how much energy it takes to raise one gram of water one degree celsius. A joule is how much work is required to produce one watt of power for one second. To convert between the two, 1 calorie is equal to 4.184 joules.

Answer 6

Calories is the imperial measure for energy, while joules is metric.