Which is greater kcal or kj

You are here. Kilocalorie Value:. Results in Kilojoules:. Do you want to convert kilojoules to kilocalories? Home Weight management. Energy in food kilojoules and calories. Actions for this page Listen Print. Summary Read the full fact sheet. On this page. Energy as kilojoules Kilojoules in food Our energy requirements vary Where to get help.

Energy as kilojoules In Australia, we use kilojoules kJ to measure how much energy people get from consuming a food or drink. Food energy used to be measured in Calories Cal and some countries still use those units. It can be hard to tell how many kilojoules are in each food just by looking, but in general: Fats and alcohol are high in kilojoules.

Protein and carbohydrates provide moderate amounts of kilojoules. Dietary fibre is low in kilojoules. Water provides no kilojoules energy. For example, a medium-sized banana grams provides calories kcal or kJ 2. When it comes to nutrition and exercise, kilocalories kcal and calories equal the same amount of energy. Calories may also be expressed as kilojoules kJ , with one calorie or kcal equaling 4.

Regulations require that food and beverage manufacturers display a nutrition facts label on their products. It lists, among other information, the amount of energy the item contains per serving or weight 3.

The nutrition facts label serves to help inform you about the healthfulness of packaged foods and beverages, as well as whether they contain ingredients that you may need to avoid due to an allergy, intolerance, or personal preference.

Depending on where you live, the nutrition facts panel may express the energy value of a food or beverage in calories, kcal, kJ, or a combination of them. Below is a list of countries and which label they use for energy 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 :. Manufacturers determine the number of calories a food or beverage contains based on the amount of energy-supplying nutrients it contains.

Protein and carbs each provide about 4 calories Alcohol also supplies 7 calories Manufacturers round to the nearest 1-gram increment, so if you were to quantify the number of calories or kJ from each of the macronutrients, they may add up to be slightly different than the number listed on the nutrition label 4.

This therefore means that to convert kcal into kilojoules, you would multiply kcal by 4. This would make it 8,kj. If you had 10,kj and wanted to figure out how many calories it is, you would just divide by 4.

This would make it 2,kcal. Or to make it even simpler, you could just round it to 4. This makes it much easier when you do not have a calculator. The below figures are rounded numbers, but are helpful for figuring out roughly how many calories are coming from each macronutrient in a food.