calories vs Calories?

Question

ive heard that the upper and lowercase "c"'s make a differec when it comes to units

Answer 1

Actually the above answer (and source) is incorrect. In most situation there is a difference. "C"alorie, in the capital sense is meant to denote a kilocalorie, or 1000 "c"alories (in the lowercase sense). Every Calorie on the back of the food boxes are indeed 1000 calories.

The problem is that these two terms are often misused, and misrepresented. A calorie in laymans terms is actually a kilocalorie, but rather than saying all of that, and making it a markedly more confusing term, it was simplified to Calorie.



Tiger Striped Dog MD

Answer 2

A convention of capitalising "Calorie" to refer to the kilogram calorie, with uncapitalised "calorie" referring to the gram calorie, is sometimes proposed, but neither recognized in any official standards, nor commonly followed.