Nutrition question

manveruppd · 20 Mar 2006 at 05:54

Was looking at the back of this packet of Jaffa cakes I have here and it says that each biscuit has "46 kcal". Surely that can't mean 46,000 calories, as that doesn't make sense, but why do they write it as 'kcal' rather than 'cal' if that's the case?

Mark A · 20 Mar 2006 at 06:36

kcal is an abbreviation for kilocalorie, which is equivalent to 1 Calorie, or 1000 calories.

Mark

manveruppd · 20 Mar 2006 at 06:50

So Calorie |= calorie...
Hmm...
So how come nutritionists use different naming conventions from every other branch of science?

j00ni · 20 Mar 2006 at 06:56

No, like Mark A says:

1 Calorie (note the capital letter) = 1000 calories = 1kcal