kleiner Chat mit Claude:
❯ is calories and kcal the same?
⏺ Technically: No. 1 kcal = 1000 calories.
In nutrition: Yes, they’re used interchangeably. When a food label or calculator says “Calories,” it means kcal.
So your 2,549 “Calories” BMR = 2,549 kcal, and your 400 “calorie” shake = 400 kcal. Same unit, confusing terminology.
❯ so the k isnt 1000 like with any other unit in the metric system?
⏺ The “k” does mean 1000, like always in metric.
1 kcal = 1000 cal ✓
The problem is that nutritionists and the food industry started calling kilocalories just “Calories” (sometimes with a capital C) decades ago because the small calorie was too tiny to be practical for food.
So it’s not that the metric system is broken — it’s that nutrition adopted sloppy shorthand that stuck. When your shake says “400 calories,” they really mean “400 kilocalories” but dropped the “kilo” part.
It’s genuinely bad terminology, and you’re right to find it confusing.
❯ insert profany here
⏺ Justified. Blame early 20th century American nutritionists who decided “kilocalorie” was too many syllables.