[paris81]

I just moved to France, and it seems that they don't show calories but kcal. I don't know what the difference is! For example, on this instant coffee I bought, it says that there is 1kCal in each cup, which seems reasonable. The milk has 33 kCal per 100ml--I think it's skim milk, but I'm not sure! I don't know if that's reasonable or not because I have no idea how much a ml is!

I'm getting worried, because I do calorie counting, and I think it's going to be more difficult here than I thought. At least I'll be walking everywhere!

Maybe there are Europeans who could help me out?
Thanks!

[Iconised Ghost]

i think that in the "diet" sense, when we talk about calories we are really talking about kilocalories, so the milk probably has 33 calories (as youn would count them) per 100mL. I think that one fluid ounce is about 29.6 mL (sorry if thats wrong, i use the metric system!!)

[elisa822]

I think in this case, they're used in the same way - kcal vs. calories. Skim milk usually has about 90 calories per cup and there are 250 ml per cup. Whatever milk you were looking at had 82.5 calories per cup so that sounds about right.

Just google conversion and you'll have an online calculator until you get used to the metric system. Here's just one sample website that might help.

[paris81]

Thanks everyone.

I actually found some measuring spoons and cups that have both the English system on it and the metric, so I'll get a feel for the comparison.

It's going to be an adventure.

[kaplods]

Yes, the are the same. What we in the USA call a calorie, is actually 1000 calories (a kilocalorie).

[mandalinn82]

Just to confirm, the two are exactly the same. What we call a "calorie" in the US is actually, technically, a kilocalorie (kcal). To be terribly technical, a calorie is the amount of energy required to raise 1 g of water by 1 degree Celsius. There are 1000 true "Calories" in every Kilocalorie, but both the US and France measure food energy in Kilocalories, they just use different terms to refer to them.