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Wait, what? That would be one kilocalorie. And that's what's listed on most food?


Yep. When you see "calorie" on US food labels, that's actually a big-C Calorie, or food calorie, which is equal to a kilocalorie from regular physics.

If it were regular physics calories, the energy content of food would be nowhere near enough to sustain us. A typical human body at rest will consume around 8 megajoules per day, or about 2 million calories. But that's only about 2 thousand big-C food Calories.

Forgetting or ignoring this difference results in amusing things like the beer and ice cream diet: http://training.fitness.com/weight-loss/beer-ice-cream-diet-...




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