Hi
i don't usually post on here, but a bit confused re calories

Could anyone give me a really simple explanation when trying to decifer lables on foods?
I am trying to follow a high cal diet but am confused when the content of certain foods give the information in kc, usually in the thousands.
My understanding is that 1500 cals is needed per day.

When I look at most products, it says for example 1050 kc.
How do I convert this into normal calories?

I am really confused

The calories you talk about when you say something has 500 calories is in fact Kcal.

So 1050 Kcal is what you would say in speech as 1050 calories. With 1 Kcal (kilogram-calorie) people would call 1 Kcal 1 calorie.

There are 1,000 calories (gram-calorie) in 1 Kcal (kilogram-calorie).

However people call the Kcals calories.

The label on the product is correct, it's just people who have dropped the kilogram off the beginning of the word calorie.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks but without sounding really stupid, does that mean a product with 1050 kc means I would be consuming 50 calories?
Really finding it hard to get my head round this! Why don't they just say calories and then I could add them up to my daily content which is 1500 ish

A product with 1050 Kc on it would mean you are consuming 1050 'calories'.

The reason why they don't just say calories is because that would be incorrect. It's just people wrongly call Kcal just calorie.

The label has it right, it is the public etc that have it wrong.

So if you see 1050Kcal on a label just take that to be what you call calorie 1050 calories (even though really that is wrong, it is what everyone incorrectly uses).

It would be like you asking for 2 grams of potatoes when in reality you mean 2 KG. You wouldn't ask for 2 grams of potatoes when you want 2KG, yet people say 2 calories when really they mean 2Kilo-calories.

I just look on the packet for how many Kcals per 100g or per biscuit or per fluid ounce. You can read how many Kcals in a muffin - a lot!

Think I've got it!
That took some doing, but penny finally clicks into place

No problem!

Neeeded for who? A little old lady, a rugby player?

It varies a lot, you need to go by your weight and activity level rather than what's on a label.

If you want to know how many calories are in something it's.

Fat - 9 cals per gramme
Protein - 4 cals per gramme
Carbs - 4 cals per gramme
Alcohol - 7cals per gramme

As the content of each product varies from item to item, even fresh stuff, and people digest and use foodstuffs differently from person to person, the amount of calories you think you are eating and think you are using can be radically different from what you are actually eating and using. As not all food is digested a lot of calories are actually wasted, particularly plant based stuff and grains. The above figures are based on total consumption by a bomb calorimeter of a substance, humans don't use food totally so the figures are just a very rough estimation.

Err.. For me! Dietician said so