The Dietary Calorie

The dietary Calorie is an energy unit commonly used to describe the energy content of foods. The physical unit "calorie" is the energy required to increase the temperature of one gram of water by 1 degree Celsius, and the dietary Calorie is a kilocalorie = 1000 calories. The dietary Calorie would then raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by 1°C. It is equal to 4186 joules. It is common practice to just use the unit kcal to avoid the confusion between "calorie" and "Calorie" .

The following table contains energy values for some selected foods in kcal.

Food
kcal/g
Food
kcal/g
Apples, raw
0.64
Meat, lean
0.27
Beans, navy
3.54
Milk, whole
0.72
Bread, white
2.66
Oatmeal, cooked
0.63
Butter
7.95
Oranje juice
0.43
Buttermilk
0.37
Potatoes, boiled
0.97
Cheese, cheddar
3.93
Rice, cooked
1.12
Chocolate
5.70
Salmon, broiled
1.70
Cream, 40%
3.81
Spinach, cooked
0.58
Egg, boiled
1.62
Sugar, granulated
3.94
Ice cream, plain
2.10
Tomato
0.23
Lard
9.30
Turnip
0.27
Lettuce, leaf
0.20
...
...
Order and disorder in biological systems.
 Index

Reference
Nave and Nave
Ch 10
 
HyperPhysics***** Biology R Nave
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