Convert kilocalorie (th) to calorie (th)

What is a kilocalorie?

A kilocalorie is a derivative of calories. To understand its meaning we should first state that a calorie equals the amount of energy that makes one gram of water warmer by 1°C at standard pressure. The term has a Latin origin and the word calor initially meant heat.

Furthermore, the energetic value of food is usually measured in larger units such as kilocalories. One kcal corresponds to 1000 calories. The latter has several estimations in joules. For instance, international cal equals 4.1868 J and thermochemical or th one corresponds to 4.1840 J. Therefore, kcal (th) will have the meaning of 4184.0 J.

It should be noted that dietology and other related areas often omit the prefix kilo- and utilize a calorie with a meaning that corresponds to a kilocalorie. This happens due to historical reasons, since earlier the terms small and large calories were officially used.

What is a calorie?

Calorie is a metric that was introduced to evaluate heating parameters. It reveals its amount needed to make 1 gram of water warmer by 1°C under standard pressure. Three varieties of this unit are defined and used, namely:

• international cal that was established as equal to 4.1868 J;
• thermochemical or cal (th) that equals 4.1840 J;
• 15-degree calorie that corresponds to 4.1855 J.

As we can see, these options differ by less than 0.07%, so they are interchangeable in measurements that do not require high accuracy.

During the last century, calories were common for energy, work and heat evaluation. Nowadays despite the transition to the standard system, they are still utilized in the heat and power industry, for heating systems and utilities. In addition, other units are derived from them like kilo- and gigacalories that allow describing bigger quantities of heat in a convenient and easy-to-use way.