nutritional facts (calories in food): units in cal or kcal?

Question

i had to do a lab in chemistry where we find out the amount of calories in junk food and we compare it to what the company claims it has ..

for cheetos i found out that there's about 3.6 cal per gram. i looked at the nutritional facts and the label says that there are 5 cal per gram. i was just wondering whether the label's value was in cal or kcal .. if it is in cal, then my calculation came pretty close .. i just have to take the experimental design flaws into consideration to justify why the values are not identical .. however, if the value 5 was in kcal, then my calculations are just totally off.

same goes for kitkat and ruffles << the other two food samples we tested.

ive read on a site that most of the time, the amount of calories on food labels are in kcal. i just want to make sure if that is the case for every single one of them.

i hope the values are in cal and NOT kcal. coz that means my calculations are pretty close >.<

thanks in advance!!

oh i figured i didnt use the right value for mass .. however, when i fixed my values i still ended up with an answer a bit off from the actual value ..

to find the amount of calories, i used the following formula:

q = mcΔT

q is in J, so when i convert to calories my units would be in calories.

1 cal = 4.184 J

there is no way i couldve ended up with kilocalories. >.<

q = (15 g)(4.18 J/(g•°C))(75°C – 21.5°C)
= 3400 J

Convert to calories:

3400 J / x cal = 4.184 J / 1 cal
x cal = 800 cal

from my calculations the answer is 800 cal per gram .. from the label, it seems like the answer is 5700 cal per gram

label says: 160 cal (i assume this would be in kcal) in 28 g or 1 0z.

Answer 1

Food stuff is measured in kcal. Also for future reference, Calories is kilocalories and calories is calories. Notice the capital C for kilocals.

Answer 2

Calories To Kilocalories

Answer 3

The calories on food labels are actually kilocalories when considering SI units in science. My suggestion to you would be to double-check your experimental setup and see how you measured the kcal of the foods, then see if you converted the units properly.

Answer 4

Cheetos Nutrition Label

Answer 5

Nutritional value is always listed in Calories which is actually kilocalories. See the reference for values for almost all foods.

Answer 6

If you think you got an experimental answer of 3.6 cal/g where the published answer is 5.0 Cal/g (i.e. 5.0 kcal/g), there is probably something wrong with the way that you handled your units when you did the calculations on your experimental data.