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Calories / Energy Measurement
A calorie is a unit of measurement for energy. Many different definitions for the calorie emerged during the 19th and 20th centuries. They fall into two 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.
In scientific contexts, 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 America, a colloquial usage for nutrition and food labeling uses the term "calorie" to refer to the kilogram calorie. The energy content of food is usually given on labels for 100 g and for a typical serving size.
The amount of food energy in a particular food could be measured by completely burning the dried food in a bomb calorimeter, a method known as direct calorimetry. However, the values given on food labels are not determined this way, because it overestimates the amount of energy that the human digestive system can extract, by also burning dietary fiber. Instead, standardized chemical tests and an analysis of the recipe are used to estimate the product's digestible constituents (protein, carbohydrate, fat, etc.). These results are then converted into an equivalent energy value based on a standardized table of energy densities:
It's more accurate to say food "has X Calories of potential energy".TheCalvinator24 wrote:Is there such a thing as a Calorie?
When we say something "has X Calories" is that really accurate language?
So, the answer is that the phrase may be imprecise or incomplete, in a scientific sense, particularly if one were doing an Einsteinian discussion of E = MC^2, but it's correct in its colloquial sense, when used to describe the amount of energy in some food being consumed.TheCalvinator24 wrote:So, the answer would be?
When they measure calories, they actually 'burn' the food item and measure the amount of energy released. It is in theory the amount of energy produced if you ate it.TheCalvinator24 wrote:I guess I have an answer. I'm not trying to stir something up. I admit that I sometimes ask questions with ulterior motives, but this was a pure quest for knowledge. I know I could have googled, but I figured somebody here wold give me a quicker and more concise and precise answer.
No, it's a measure of heat. The food contains potential energy but it has to be "burned" first.TheCalvinator24 wrote:So, the calorie is a measure of potential energy, right?
But as Cal is staring at that cookie in front of him, it is potential energy, expressed in the chemical bonds of the sugars and carbohydrates it's made with. When he eats that cookie and goes running to burn it off, those substances are digested and converted into heat, unless he doesn't go running, in which case that cookie may be converted into fat, when it again is a potential energy to be burnt off at some later time.Bob Juch wrote:No, it's a measure of heat. The food contains potential energy but it has to be "burned" first.TheCalvinator24 wrote:So, the calorie is a measure of potential energy, right?
You're welcome!TheCalvinator24 wrote:Now I'm confused.
I'm trying to wrap my brain around this. It seems like it is incorrect to say the cookie has or contains a certain number of calories.MarleysGh0st wrote:But as Cal is staring at that cookie in front of him, it is potential energy, expressed in the chemical bonds of the sugars and carbohydrates it's made with. When he eats that cookie and goes running to burn it off, those substances are digested and converted into heat, unless he doesn't go running, in which case that cookie may be converted into fat, when it again is a potential energy to be burnt off at some later time.Bob Juch wrote:No, it's a measure of heat. The food contains potential energy but it has to be "burned" first.TheCalvinator24 wrote:So, the calorie is a measure of potential energy, right?
By strict definition, a calorie is a measure of heat.
But we don't say that something has a certain number of inches.silvercamaro wrote:I think you are getting hung up on the fact that a measure of something is an abstract concept. All measures are abstract, but if you accept that "an inch" is "a thing" with commonly shared meaning, then "a calorie" also has meaning, even though you cannot see it or touch it.
Well, those verbs are being used a little more loosely than in a strict sense of being or ownership. It's not exactly the same as saying that cookie weighs two ounces or contains six chocolate chips. But it's much simpler to to say (and understand in its everyday usage) that the cookie has 100 calories than to say that a human being will gain 100 calories by consuming said cookie.TheCalvinator24 wrote: I'm trying to wrap my brain around this. It seems like it is incorrect to say the cookie has or contains a certain number of calories.
The calories are there, waiting to be released.TheCalvinator24 wrote:But we don't say that something has a certain number of inches.silvercamaro wrote:I think you are getting hung up on the fact that a measure of something is an abstract concept. All measures are abstract, but if you accept that "an inch" is "a thing" with commonly shared meaning, then "a calorie" also has meaning, even though you cannot see it or touch it.
I think I understand what a calorie is, but it really seems like the common usage is wrong.
silvercamaro wrote:I think you are getting hung up on the fact that a measure of something is an abstract concept. All measures are abstract, but if you accept that "an inch" is "a thing" with commonly shared meaning, then "a calorie" also has meaning, even though you cannot see it or touch it.
Sure we do. A foot has 12 inches. A yard has 36 inches. Sometimes we say there are 12 inches in a foot, just as we sometimes say that there are 100 calories in a cookie.TheCalvinator24 wrote:
But we don't say that something has a certain number of inches.
My condolences.kusch wrote:silvercamaro wrote:I think you are getting hung up on the fact that a measure of something is an abstract concept. All measures are abstract, but if you accept that "an inch" is "a thing" with commonly shared meaning, then "a calorie" also has meaning, even though you cannot see it or touch it.
Huh??? I have a "thing" that could be described as an "inch". I can see it and touch it.
No, those calories will generate energy one way or the other. Excess energy will be used to make fat cells bigger.MarleysGh0st wrote:But as Cal is staring at that cookie in front of him, it is potential energy, expressed in the chemical bonds of the sugars and carbohydrates it's made with. When he eats that cookie and goes running to burn it off, those substances are digested and converted into heat, unless he doesn't go running, in which case that cookie may be converted into fat, when it again is a potential energy to be burnt off at some later time.Bob Juch wrote:No, it's a measure of heat. The food contains potential energy but it has to be "burned" first.TheCalvinator24 wrote:So, the calorie is a measure of potential energy, right?
By strict definition, a calorie is a measure of heat.