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calorie

  (kăl'ə-rē) pronunciation
n.
  1. (Abbr. cal) Any of several approximately equal units of heat, each measured as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C from a standard initial temperature, especially from 3.98°C, 14.5°C, or 19.5°C, at 1 atmosphere pressure. Also called gram calorie, small calorie.
  2. (Abbr. cal) The unit of heat equal to 1/100 the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water from 0 to 100°C at 1 atmosphere pressure. Also called mean calorie.
    1. (Abbr. Cal) The unit of heat equal to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1°C at 1 atmosphere pressure. Also called kilocalorie, kilogram calorie; Also called large calorie.
    2. A unit of energy-producing potential equal to this amount of heat that is contained in food and released upon oxidation by the body. Also called nutritionist's calorie.

[French, from Latin calor, heat. See caloric.]


 
 
World of the Body: calorie

Calor means heat, and a calorie is defined as the amount of heat which will raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1°C. The Calorie (kilocalorie, kcal) is 1000 calories — a more useful unit and widely used. In a ‘calorimeter’ a substance can be combusted in the presence of oxygen, to measure the amount of heat generated per gram. From such basic measurements, and by extrapolation to mixtures of different ingredients, the ‘calorie count’ can be applied as a measure of the energy derivable from a food source. Kcals are also the traditional units for the body's metabolic rate: the energy output or expenditure in kcal/min. Attempts to supplant it by the SI (Systeme Internationale) unit, the kilojoule (energy defined in electrical terms) have only partially succeeded; the energy content of food is usually quoted in both (1 kcal = 4.2 kJ).

— Stuart Judge

See dieting; energy balance; metabolism.

 
Food and Nutrition: calorie

A unit of energy used to express the energy yield of foods and energy expenditure by the body. Name coined by Atwater in 1895. One calorie (cal) is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 g of water through 1 ° C (from 14.5-15.5 ° C). Nutritionally the kilocalorie (1000 calories) is used (the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water through 1 ° C), and is abbreviated as either kcal or Cal to avoid confusion with the cal.

The calorie is not an SI unit, and correctly the joule is used as the unit of energy, although kcal are widely used. 1 kcal = 4.18 kJ; 1 kJ = 0.24  kcal.

 
Food and Fitness: calorie

Despite an international convention which agreed to use the joule (J) as the standard unit for energy, work, and heat, the calorie is the unit most commonly used in written work about nutrition. One calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 g of water through 1°C (more precisely, from 14.5°C to 15.5°C). It is easy to convert calories into joules, as one calorie equals 4.2 joules (more exactly, 4.184 joules). These units are very small in relation to the energy used by a person, so it is usual to use units 1000 times larger. These should be called kilocalories (often written as Calorie), but most diet and exercise books use ‘calories’ to mean kilocalories; so a 1000 calorie diet is really a diet that provides 1000 kilocalories a day.

 
Food Lover's Companion: calorie

[KAL-uh-ree] A unit measuring the energy value of foods, calibrated by the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by one degree celsius at a pressure of one atmo- sphere. The four sources from which calories are obtained are alcohol, carbohydrates, fats and proteins however all these sources are not equal. For example, fat packs a hefty 9 calories per gram, over twice as much as the 4 calories per gram carried by both carbohydrates and proteins. Alcohol has 7 calories per gram, almost as many as fat. Clearly, fats and alcohol have a much higher caloric density than carbohydrates and proteins, so it's obvious that a 6-ounce serving of steak will be much more expensive calorically than 6 ounces of cauliflower.

 
Dental Dictionary: calorie

n

The amount of heat required to raise 1 g of water 1° C at atmospheric pressure, also called gram calorie or small calorie. A great calorie, or kilocalorie, consists of 1000 small calories. The kilocalorie is the unit used to denote the heat expenditure of an organism and the fuel or energy value of food.

 
Measures and Units: calorie

gram-calorie, petit calorie, small calorie

heat energy 4.1868 J (3.968 322 93~ × 10-3 B.t.u.), but also thermochemical calorie calth = 4.184 J.

Although widely known as a unit for indicating the energy content of foodstuffs (and hence, to some extent, their ‘fattening power’), the calorie is technically a measure of heat energy. Its use in nutrition corresponds to its use in physics, both being a measure of energy; however, the ‘calorie’ of the food packet is usually a kilocalorie or kilogram-calorie of 1 000 calories, reflecting a like ambiguous use in physiology. Sometimes distinguished by capitalization as Calorie, the latter is more clearly the large calorie or grand calorie with the true unit as the small calorie, petit calorie, or, more properly, the gram-calorie.

Defined in 1880 as the energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 Celsius degree (i.e. 1 K) without further qualification, the term required an acknowledgement of the reference temperature for any precise use, since the amount is dependent on starting temperature. This is denoted by a suffix, e.g. cal15 denotes the rise from 14.5 to 15.5°C; calmean denotes the mean per degree over the range 0 to 100°C.

international steam calorie calIT= 4.186 74~ J,
mean calorie calmean= 4.190 02~ J
4°C calorie cal4= 4.204 5~ J (water at its densest)
15°C calorie cal15= 4.185 5~ J (15°C = cool indoors)
20°C calorie cal20= 4.181 90~ J (20°C = warm indoors)
The cal15 is usually meant by the mechanical equivalent of heat. The international steam calorie calIT = 4.186 74~, based on the international steam tables, prompted the rounded = 4.186 8 J.

Generically also heat unit and from 1888 to 1896 the therm (see also B.t.u. and joule), the calorie proved difficult of laboratory verification.
[Joly J. Nature Vol. 52, 4 (1895)]

For foodstuffs, the calorific content is usually measured (in kcal, i.e. the heat energy that raises 1 kg one degree) by burning in an atmosphere of pure oxygen in a bomb calorimeter.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: calorie

Unit of energy or heat. Various precise definitions are used for different purposes (physical chemistry measurements, engineering steam tables, and thermochemistry), but in all cases the calorie is about 4.2 joules, the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 g of water by 1 °C (1.8 °F) at normal atmospheric pressure. The calorie used by dietitians and food scientists and found on food labels is actually the kilocalorie (also called Calorie and abbreviated kcal or Cal), or 1,000 calories. It is a measure of the amount of heat energy or metabolic energy contained in the chemical bonds (see bonding) of a food.

For more information on calorie, visit Britannica.com.

 
Architecture: calorie

The heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1°C; now called a small calorie. A large calorie is equal to 1000 small calories, i.e. a kilocalorie.

 
Sports Science and Medicine: calorie

cal

Unit of work and energy. One calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 g of water by 1°C at normal pressure. Although it has been replaced by the joule in the SI system, the calorie is still widely used, especially in describing energy values of food and exercise expenditure. Physiologists tend to use the kilocalorie (equal to 1000 cal), sometimes referred to as the Calorie (Cal) to distinguish it from the calorie.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: calorie,
abbr. cal, unit of heat energy in the metric system. The measurement of heat is called calorimetry. The calorie, or gram calorie, is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of pure water 1°C. The kilocalorie, or kilogram calorie, is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 kg of pure water 1°C; it is equal to 1,000 cal. The kilocalorie is used in dietetics for stating the heat content of a food, i.e., the amount of heat energy that the food can yield as it passes through the body; in this context, the kilocalorie is usually called simply the calorie. The amount of heat energy needed to effect a 1°C temperature increase in 1 gram of water varies with temperature (see heat capacity); thus the temperature range over which the heating takes place must be stated to define the calorie precisely. The 15° calorie, or normal calorie, is widely used in chemistry and physics; it is measured by heating a 1-gram water sample from 14.5°C to 15.5°C at 1 atmosphere pressure. The 4° calorie, also called the small calorie or therm, is measured from 3.5°C to 4.5°C (water is most dense at 3.98°C); the large calorie, or Calorie, is equivalent to 1,000 small calories. The average value of the calorie in the range 0°C to 100°C is called the mean calorie; it is 1/100 of the energy needed to heat 1 gram of water from its melting point to its boiling point. The calorie may also be defined by expressing its value in some other energy units. The 15° calorie is equivalent to 4.185 joules (J), 1.162×10−6 kilowatt-hours, 3.968×10−3 British thermal units, and 3.087 foot-pounds; the 4° calorie equals 4.204 J; and the mean calorie equals 4.190 J. Two other calories sometimes used are the International Steam Table calorie, equal to 4.187 J, and the thermochemical calorie, equal to 4.184 J. When the calorie is used for precision measurement of heat energy, the particular calorie being used must be specified.

 
Food & Culture Encyclopedia: Calorie

The calorie is a unit for measuring heat energy, and it is usually used as the unit for food energy and of energy expenditure. Media and lay attention to food, exercise, and health, as well as the greater prevalence of obesity during the past few decades, has resulted in a cultural preoccupation with caloric intake and expenditure in industrialized nations. Heat is that which produces a change in temperature. Heat was formerly regarded as a substance called "caloric," but it came to be viewed as the random motion of molecules.

The calorie has traditionally been defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1.8°F (1.0°C), usually defined as from 58.1°F to 59.9°F (14.5°C to 15.5°C), under normal atmospheric conditions. Because electrical measurements can be standardized more accurately than heat measurements, a calorie is officially defined as equivalent to 4.186 joule. A joule is defined, in "force × distance" units, as 1 Newton meter, which is equal to (1 kg m/s2) × (1m) or 1 kg m2/s2. Energy values are expressed as joules when the Système International d'Unités, which is recommended for all scientific purposes, is required.

Food energy values and energy expenditures are commonly expressed as the number of kilocalories (kcal). One kcal is equal to 1000 calories or 4.186 kJ or 0.004186 MJ. Although the terms "calorie" and "large calorie" have frequently been used in place of kilocalorie in the nutrition literature and for food labeling purposes, these alternative terms are confusing, and their use is discouraged.

Measurement of Energy Values of Foods

The energy in foods is present as chemical energy; it can be measured by the heat evolved when the food is oxidized or combusted. Although energy transformations normally involve friction and heat conduction, which cause the changes of one form of energy to another to be incomplete, various forms of energy normally can be converted completely to heat. The caloric value of a food may be determined by burning weighed samples of the food in an oxygen atmosphere in an apparatus called a calorimeter, which is designed to allow measurement of the heat released by combustion of the fuel or food. The total amount of heat produced or consumed when a chemical system changes from an initial state to a final state is independent of the way this change is brought about (the law of Hess or the law of constant heat sums). Thus the complete oxidation of a compound, such as glucose, to CO2 and H2O produces the same amount of heat whether the process is carried out in a calorimeter or by metabolism within the body.

Heats of combustion are not accurate reflections of the amount of energy available to the body, however, because the body does not completely absorb and metabolize ingested nutrients. The energy lost in the excreta (feces and urine) must be subtracted from the total energy value of the food to obtain the amount of energy available to the body from consumption of the food. The caloric values of foods reported in food composition tables are "physiological fuel values," also referred to as "available energy" or "metabolizable energy" values. They are not total energy values.

Physiological Fuel Values of Foods

The physiological fuel value of a food or a food component may be determined by measuring the heat of combustion of the food in a calorimeter and then multiplying the heat of combustion by correction factors for incomplete digestion and incomplete oxidation of the food in the body. In about 1900, Wilbur Olin Atwater and his associates at the Connecticut (Storrs) Agriculture Experiment Station used this approach to determine the physiological fuel values of a number of food components (i.e., the protein, fat, and carbohydrate isolated from various foods). They determined factors appropriate for individual foods or groups of foods, and they proposed the general physiological fuel equivalents of 4.0, 8.9, and 4.0 kcal per gram of dietary protein, fat, and carbohydrate respectively for application to the mixed American diet. These factors are commonly rounded to 4, 9, and 4 kcal per gram (17, 36, and 17 kJ per gram) respectively for protein, fat, and carbohydrate. The conversion factors determined by Atwater and his associates remain in use in the twenty-first century, and energy values of foods are calculated using these factors. The energy values (physiological fuel values) reported in food composition tables are commonly estimated by determination of the proximate composition of each food (i.e., the water, protein, fat, carbohydrate, and ash contents) followed by multiplication of the amount of each energy-yielding component by the appropriate conversion factor.

Bibliography

Kleiber, Max. The Fire of Life: An Introduction to Animal Energetics. New York: Wiley, 1961.

Kriketos, Adamandia D., John C. Peters, and James O. Hill. "Cellular and Whole-Animal Energetics." In Biochemical and Physiological Aspects of Human Nutrition, edited by Martha H. Stipanuk. Philadelphia: Saunders, 2000.

Merrill, A. L., and B. K. Watt. Energy Values of Foods . . . Basis and Derivations. USDA Agriculture Handbook No. 74. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973.

—Martha H. Stipanuk

 
Science Dictionary: Calorie

The amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. A calorie (with a lower-case c) is a measurement of the heat needed to raise the temperature of a gram of water, rather than a kilogram.

 
Veterinary Dictionary: calorie

Any of several units of heat defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius (1°C) at a specified temperature. The calorie used in chemistry and biochemistry is equal to 4.184 joules. Symbol cal.
In referring to the energy content of foods it is customary to use the ‘large calorie’, which is equal to 1 kilocalorie (kcal), 1000 cal. Every bodily process—the building up of cells, motion of the muscles, the maintenance of body temperature—requires energy, and the body derives this energy from the food it consumes. Digestive processes reduce food to usable fuel, which the body burns in the complex chemical reactions that sustain life.

 
Unit Conversions: gram-calorie (mean)

To convert from gram-calorie (mean) to:

Btu (mean), multiply by .00396832.
horsepower-hour, multiply by 1.55961E-06.
horsepower-hour (metric), multiply by 1.58124E-06.
joule, multiply by 4.1868.
kilowatt-hour, multiply by 1.163E-06.

Convert:  Into: 
Result: 
Related measurements:
gram-calorie


 
Word Tutor: calorie
pronunciation

IN BRIEF: A unit for measuring the energy that food supplies to the body.

pronunciation Many high calorie foods have a lot of fat in them as well.

 
Wikipedia: calorie

A calorie is a unit of measurement for energy. Calorie is French and derives from the Latin calor (heat). In most fields, it has been replaced by the joule, the SI unit of energy. However, the kilocalorie or Calorie (capital "C") remains in common use for the amount of food energy. The calorie was first defined by Professor Nicolas Clément in 1824 as a kilogram-calorie and this definition entered French and English dictionaries between 1842 and 1867.

The calorie was never an SI unit. Modern definitions for calorie fall into 3 classes:

  • The small calorie or gram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 joules.
  • The large calorie or kilogram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 kJ, and exactly 1000 small calories.
  • The megacalorie or ton calorie[citation needed] approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 tonne of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 MJ, and exactly 1000 large calories.

In some scientific contexts such as physics and chemistry, the name "calorie" refers strictly to the gram calorie, and this unit has the symbol cal. SI prefixes are used with this name and symbol, so that the kilogram calorie is known as the "kilocalorie" and has the symbol kcal.

In the medical sciences and non-scientific contexts the calorie is equal to a kilocalorie in the physics or chemistry sense, and is occasionally referred to as a Calorie (capital "C") in an unsuccessful and rather ineffective—because not adopted by any significant groups of people, and partly because it has no effect when the word appears at the beginning of a list item or of a sentence—attempt to distinguish it, and it has to be inferred from the context that the small calorie is not intended.

The conversion factor among calories and joules is numerically equivalent to the specific heat capacity of liquid water (in SI units). See "Versions" below for explanation of units.

1 calIT = 4.1868 J (1 J = 0.23885 calIT) (International Steam Table calorie, 1956)
1 calth = 4.184 J (1 J = 0.23901 calth) (Thermochemical calorie)
1 cal15 = 4.18580 J (1 J = 0.23890 cal15) (15°C calorie)

Versions

The energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 g of water by 1 Celsius varies depending on the starting temperature, and is in any case difficult to measure precisely. Accordingly there have been several definitions of the calorie:

  • 15 °C calorie (cal15): the amount of energy required to warm 1 g of air-free water from 14.5 °C to 15.5 °C at a constant pressure of 101.325 kPa (1 atm). Experimental values of this calorie ranged from 4.1852 J to 4.1858 J. The CIPM in 1950 published a mean experimental value of 4.1855 J, noting an uncertainty of 0.0005 J.
  • 20 °C calorie: the amount of energy required to warm 1 g of air-free water from 19.5 °C to 20.5 °C at a constant pressure of 101.325 kPa (1 atm). This is about 4.182 J.
  • 4 °C calorie: the amount of energy required to warm 1 g of air-free water from 3.5 °C to 4.5 °C at a constant pressure of 101.325 kPa (1 atm).
  • Mean calorie: 1/100 of the amount of energy required to warm 1 g of air-free water from 0 °C to 100 °C at a constant pressure of 101.325 kPa (1 atm). This is about 4.190 J
  • International Steam Table Calorie (1929): (1/860) W h = (180/43) J exactly. This is approximately 4.1860 J.
  • International Steam Table Calorie (1956) (calIT): 1.163 mW h = 4.1868 J exactly. This definition was adopted by the Fifth International Conference on Properties of Steam (London, July 1956).
  • Thermochemical calorie (calth): 4.184 J exactly.
  • IUNS calorie: 4.182 J exactly. This is a definition implied by the Committee on Nomenclature of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (date and reference needed).

The two perhaps most popular definitions used in older literature are the "15 °C calorie" and the "thermochemical calorie". Since the many different definitions are a source of confusion and error, all calories are now deprecated in favour of the SI unit for heat and energy: the joule (J).

Nutrition

In nutrition, the difference between these calorie definitions is of no practical relevance. This is because nutritional calories are not measured amounts of energy, but are calculated from food composition. Such calculations use internationally agreed conventional conversion factors, which are generously rounded values that roughly approximate the average energy density of a large number of different food samples. The exact composition of agricultural products varies far more than the 0.1% difference between the above definitions of the calorie as a physical energy measure.

Human fat tissue contains about 87% lipids, so that 1 kg of body-fat tissue has roughly the caloric energy of 870 g of pure fat, or 7800 kcal. In principle one has to create a 7800 kcal deficit or surplus between energy intake and use to lose or gain 1 kg of body-fat. (or 3500 kcal per pound). [1] However, if one eats 7800 kcal more than the body needs, one won't necessarily gain 1 kg of fat, since muscle and other tissues may be built. The same way, if one eats 7800 kcal less than their maintenance level, they may not lose 1 kg of fat, since muscle and sugars may be metabolized to generate energy.

See also

References

  1. ^ Medical Encyclopedia: Losing weight. MedlinePlus. Retrieved on 2007-08-28.

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
Translations: Translations for: Calorie

Dansk (Danish)
n. - (gram)kalorie, (kilo)kalorie

Nederlands (Dutch)
calorie, warmte

Français (French)
n. - (Phys) calorie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Kalorie

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - θερμίδα

Italiano (Italian)
caloria

Português (Portuguese)
n. - caloria (f)

Русский (Russian)
калория

Español (Spanish)
n. - caloría

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kalori

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
卡路里

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 卡路里

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 칼로리

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - グラムカロリー, 平均カロリー, カロリー, これに相当する食物, 国際表カロリー, 熱量

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) سعرة حراريه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮קלוריה, חומית‬

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
World of the Body. The Oxford Companion to the Body. Copyright © 2001, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food and Nutrition. A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition. Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2005 by A. E. Bender and D. A. Bender. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food and Fitness. Food and Fitness: A Dictionary of Diet and Exercise. Copyright © 1997, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food Lover's Companion. Food Lover's Companion. Copyright © 2001 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Dental Dictionary. Mosby's Dental Dictionary. Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Measures and Units. A Dictionary of Weights, Measures, and Units. Copyright © Donald Fenna 2002, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Architecture. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Sports Science and Medicine. The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine. Copyright © Michael Kent 1998, 2006, 2007. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
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