Acalorieis a unit of vim . We be given to connect kilocalorie with food , but they apply to anything containing energy . For example , a gallon ( about 4 litre ) ofgasolinecontains about 31,000,000 calories . You could drive a railway car 22 stat mi ( 35 kilometre ) on the kilogram calorie in 217 Big Macs .
Specifically , a kilocalorie is the amount of energy , or heat energy , it need to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius ( 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit ) . One kilocalorie is equal to 4.184 joules , a common whole of energy used in the physical science .
Most of us think ofcaloriesin sexual intercourse to thing we consume and imbibe , as in " This can of soda has 200 calories . " It turns out that the calories list on a food package are actually kilocalories ( 1000 calorie = 1 kilocalorie ) . So that can of sal soda in reality has 200,000 Calorie ( but do n’t interest , the same applies to exercise – when an drill chart say you combust 100 calories clip a Admiralty mile , it means 100,000 calories ) . A food " calorie " is sometimes capitalize to show the conflict , but normally not .
Human beings require energy to survive – to breathe , move , pump roue – and they acquire this energy from food . The number of gram calorie in a food for thought is a touchstone of how much potential energy that food possess . A gram of carbohydrates has 4 gram calorie , a gram of protein has 4 calories and a gram of fat has 9 calories . Foodsare a compilation of these three building blocks . So if you cognize how many carbohydrates , fats and proteins are in any given food , you know how many calories , or how much energy , that food contains .
If we reckon at the nutritional recording label on the back of a packet of maple - and - brown - lettuce burgoo , we find that it has 160 calories . This intend that if we were to pour this oatmeal into a dish , define the burgoo on fire and get it to burn altogether , the reaction would produce 160 kilocalories ( remember : food kilocalorie are nutritionist’s calorie ) – enough zip to elevate the temperature of 160 kilograms of water by 1 degree Celsius . If we expect closer at the nutritional label , we see that our oatmeal has 2 gm of juicy , 4 grams of protein and 32 grams of sugar , producing a total of 162 calories . Of these 162 calories , 18 amount from fat ( 9 cal x 2 guanine ) , 16 come from protein ( 4 cal x 4 g ) and 128 come from carbohydrates ( 4 cal x 32 g ) .
Our physical structure " burn " the calories in the oatmeal through metabolic processes , by whichenzymesbreak the carbohydrate into glucose and other sugars , the fats into glycerol and roly-poly acids and the proteins into amino window pane ( seeHow Food Worksfor details ) . These corpuscle are then transport through the bloodstream to thecells , where they are either absorbed for straightaway use or are sent on to the final stage of metamorphosis , in which they are reacted with oxygen to free their stored energy .
