this post is in response to someone who asked me, "Isn't 500 kilocalories equivalent to 500, 000 calories? whoa!" after watching malnourished ethiopian children being fed Plumpy'nut paste on the news. Plumpy'nut paste has a Caloric value of 500 kilocalories (that's what i heard on the news, anyway). that someone is bewildered as to how a person can consume 500,000 calories in one meal.

i was appalled, and glared at him, as i thought everyone knew the basic calorie, Calorie and kcalorie concept. well, i thought wrong.
now, where do i begin?

firstly, let's start with the word 'calorie'.
it is a unit of energy and falls into two classes, chemistry calorie and food calorie.

let's deal with the chemistry calorie first:
in chemistry, the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1g of distilled water by 1deg celcius from 14.5deg celcius to 15.5deg celcius is 1 small calorie/gram calorie. This is equivalent to 4.1855 Joules, and exactly 0.001 large calories.

therefore, the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1kg of distilled water by 1deg celcius from 14.5deg celcius to 15.5deg celcius is 1 large calorie/kilogram calorie. This is equivalent to 4.1855 kJoules and exactly 1000 small calories.

are you following me so far?

now, with food Calorie (the one we're all so obsessed with):
firstly, to differentiate chemistry and food calories, the food Calorie is always with a capital 'C'. secondly, our body generates useful energy by breaking chemical bonds in food molecules, usually starch and sugars (bad, bad!). so this is perfect explanation to the fact that the higher Calories a food has, the more energy it generates.
thirdly, 1 Calorie=1000 small calories=1 kcalorie.

there, you have it.
1 Calorie=1 kcalorie.
i'm tired of explaining, so i've cut the story short.

so as you can see, these malnourised ethiopian kids are only having 500 kcalorie=500 Calories per meal.

i hope it's cleared up lotsa food label-Caloric intake misunderstandings.
just gimme chocolate can already, cos they never put any nutritional information on those things.
luv, nat