A calorie is a unit of energy. Various definitions exist but fall into two broad categories. The first, the small calorie, or gram calorie (symbol: cal), is defined as the approximate amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius at a pressure of one atmosphere. The second is the large calorie or kilogram calorie (symbol: Cal), also known as the food calorie and similar names, is defined in terms of the kilogram rather than the gram. It is equal to 1000 small calories or 1 kilocalorie (symbol: kcal).
Although these units relate to the metric system, all of them have been considered obsolete in science since the adoption of the SI system. The unit of energy in the International System of Units is the joule. One small calorie is approximately 4.2 joules (so one large calorie is about 4.2 kilojoules). The factor used to convert calories to joules at a given temperature is numerically equivalent to the specific heat capacity of water expressed in joules per kelvin per gram or per kilogram. The precise conversion factor depends on the definition adopted.
In spite of its non-official status, the large calorie is still widely used as a unit of food energy. The small calorie is also often used for measurements in chemistry, although the amounts involved are typically recorded in kilocalories.
The calorie was first defined by Nicolas Clément in 1824 as a unit of heat energy and entered French and English dictionaries between 1841 and 1867. The word comes from Latin calor, meaning 'heat'. The large calorie was introduced to the American public by Wilbur Olin Atwater in 1887.
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Definitions
The energy needed to increase the temperature of a given mass of water by 1 °C depends on the atmospheric pressure and the starting temperature. Accordingly, several different precise definitions of the calorie have been used.
The pressure is usually taken to be the standard atmospheric pressure (101.325 kPa). The temperature increase can be expressed as one kelvin, which means the same as an increment of one degree Celsius.
The two definitions most common in older literature appear to be the 15 °C calorie and the thermochemical calorie. Until 1948, the latter was defined as 4.1833 international joules; the current standard of 4.184 J was chosen to have the new thermochemical calorie represent the same quantity of energy as before.
The calorie was first defined specifically to measure energy in the form of heat, especially in experimental calorimetry.
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Nutrition
In a nutritional context, the kilojoule (kJ) is the SI unit of food energy, although the kilocalorie is still in common use. The word calorie is popularly used with the number of kilocalories of nutritional energy measured. As if to avoid confusion, it is sometimes written Calorie (with a capital "C") in an attempt to make the distinction, although this is not widely understood. Capitalization contravenes the rule that the initial letter of a unit name or its derivative shall be lower case in English.
To facilitate comparison, specific energy or energy density figures are often quoted as "calories per serving" or "kilocalories per 100 g". A nutritional requirement or consumption is often expressed in calories per day. One gram of fat in food contains nine kilocalories, while a gram of either a carbohydrate or a protein contains approximately four kilocalories. Alcohol in a food contains seven kilocalories per gram.
Chemistry
In other scientific contexts, the term calorie almost always refers to the small calorie. Even though it is not an SI unit, it is still used in chemistry. For example, the energy released in a chemical reaction per mole of reagent is occasionally expressed in kilocalories per mole. Typically, this use was largely due to the ease with which it could be calculated in laboratory reactions, especially in aqueous solution: a volume of reagent dissolved in water forming a solution, with concentration expressed in moles per liter (1 liter weighing 1 kg), will induce a temperature change in degrees Celsius in the total volume of water solvent, and these quantities (volume, molar concentration and temperature change) can then be used to calculate energy per mole. It is also occasionally used to specify energy quantities that relate to reaction energy, such as enthalpy of formation and the size of activation barriers. However, its use is being superseded by the SI unit, the joule, and multiples thereof such as the kilojoule.
Measurement of calories in food
In the past a bomb calorimeter was utilised to determine the energy content of food by burning a sample and measuring a temperature change in the surrounding water. Today this method is not commonly used in the USA and has been succeeded by calculating the energy content indirectly from adding up the energy provided by energy-containing nutrients of food (such as protein, carbohydrates and fats). The fibre content is also subtracted to account for the fact fibre is not digested by the body.
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