It took me a moment when I saw the pic to come to terms with the fact that, for as many times as I’ve seen kcal previously, I somehow never realized it was was short hand for kilocalories. 🤯
Exactly. They use a unit representing 1000 calories. They don’t use calories. In the US we use “Calories” which are 1000 calories. Lowercase c calories are just too small of a unit to be useful and virtually nobody uses them.
I’m not misunderstanding metric prefixes, you’re misunderstanding my point. When I say “Nobody uses calories” I mean “People don’t use the unit calories”. The way you don’t use millimeters when describing someone’s height. Or light-years. Yes, it’s just a simple conversion, but nobody uses it. America uses “Calories” with an uppercase C which is 1000 calories. Other countries use kilocalories which is also 1000 calories.
The thing is that most people don’t know Calories and calories are different so generally speaking if someone says calories they mean Calories.
I’m gonna take. this opportunity to point out how stupid it is that 1 Calorie = 1kilocalorie. Actually my least favorite unit.
It took me a moment when I saw the pic to come to terms with the fact that, for as many times as I’ve seen kcal previously, I somehow never realized it was was short hand for kilocalories. 🤯
America moment
what?
what is typically called a ‘calorie’ is actually 1000 of the real unit.
the real size of a calorie is too small to used effectively, but saying ‘kilocalorie’ is too long or smth idk.
people just need to use kilojoules and fuck Imperial off.
Wrong, a Calorie is 1000 calories. Virtually nobody uses calories though so don’t worry about it too much.
European nutritional labels use them (kcal). Where do you live that they don’t?
Exactly. They use a unit representing 1000 calories. They don’t use calories. In the US we use “Calories” which are 1000 calories. Lowercase c calories are just too small of a unit to be useful and virtually nobody uses them.
You misunderstand metric prefixes. kcal is not a separate unit from cal, it is the same unit with a prefix slapped infront
1000 cal = 1k cal = 1 kcal
The equal sign here is not a unit conversion
I’m not misunderstanding metric prefixes, you’re misunderstanding my point. When I say “Nobody uses calories” I mean “People don’t use the unit calories”. The way you don’t use millimeters when describing someone’s height. Or light-years. Yes, it’s just a simple conversion, but nobody uses it. America uses “Calories” with an uppercase C which is 1000 calories. Other countries use kilocalories which is also 1000 calories.
The thing is that most people don’t know Calories and calories are different so generally speaking if someone says calories they mean Calories.