Food labels – do we need calories and kilojoules?

I don’t think anyone is going to confuse a calorie and kilocalorie (kcal).

I do not agree with that, it was only recently when the joules issue started that I even knew about the kcal. I had often wondered how we humans managed to live on such a small amount of power, I now know it is 1,000 times more.

The portion size will be on the label, perhaps in small print. By making the portion size small it may encourage you to think that choosing that product will help you lose weight.

Look at the ‘serving suggestion’ on the front of a packet and it might just be more than a portion. 🙂

I’m as fed-up with lack of progress with completion of metrication as you are Brian, but there is no need to twist Shefalee’s words. 🙂

In the run-up to decimalisation in 1971 we had prices shown in both the old and new system and pounds, shillings and pence disappeared not long after. Many foods show both kJ and kcal, so it should not be a major problem to phase out the old units, though I suggest this would best be done at the same time as we tackle other aspects of metrication. We had a lot of fuss about removal of leaded petrol and that is now long forgotten for the vast majority of the population.

Your post is rather like the Americans use the word FASCIA on Cars when the majority know it as Dashboard plain daft.

The calorie was defined by a Frence physisist as “The energy requiered to raise 1 gram of water by 1 Kelvin ..etc “that sounds like metric to me.
The Joule is defined by an English scientist and is also metric.
So take your pick, metric and French or metric and English.
Either way, the joule is the SI unit now used. The calorie or Calorie (kcal or Cal) is no longer defined.
The Joule is what it is, I just detest dual labeling.

If you really want a non-metric unit then may I suggest the Btu?

Now according to a recent post I have seen, everyone in the UK knows exactly what that is.

Everyone that is except me.

Btu? I hope you are not going to start a heated argument. 🙂

Malc: Metrication is only unpopular in the UK because successive gutless governments have allowed the issue to be dragged out over at least 45 years (and still counting) rather than do what should have been done, finishing the issue in the 1970’s.

However, that’s irrelevant in this story as both calories and Joules are metric, it’s just become a case that the food and slimming industries have muddied the water, mixing up calories and kilocalories to a point that no-one knows what’s being discussed any more. Additionally, as stated elsewhere, the calorie was never the best unit for energy measurement anyway – it messed up energy itself with the effect energy has on the temperature of water (which is non-linear).

Better by far to state “Energy per 100g: 15.2kJ”. All you’ve got to do (as you do now if you’re watching your energy intake) is to tot up the Joules, and compare with your recommended daily or weekly amount (also in Joules of course).

It only gets hard if (say) the slimming industry decide (as they probably will) to mess everything up and stick with “calories” when all the food labelling is in Joules. Notice that the slimming industry already make it hard for everyone by continuing to bang on about peoples’ weights in stones and gravel despite whenever you go to the gym (or the doctors’) you weigh yourself (or get weighed) in kilos. And have done for years.

Another one that considers scientists and people to be a different species.
Do you not think that us plebs out here sometimes want to try to work things out also?

To be able to relate the energy used to boil a litre of water in a kettle, (Joules, Watt seconds), to the energy required to propel a 70 kg man (say) 1 km (in joules, calories are meaningless), should be a fundamental human right for all of us.

Also to relate the cost of producing that energy (for electricity and thankfully now gas in kW/h directly convertible to Joules), and the cost of food to produce the same energy is a lot easier than trying to work in Btu, kW/h, calories, feet and inches and any other daft units you experts like dream up in the pretence it makes life easier for us.

Life should not be shrouded in mystery units that most of us have no hope in remembering, understanding or converting. As a septuagenarian I would like the benefits of your advanced education to be used to better effect, not used to continue to hold the country back in the “good old days”.
The SI system has evolved and changed over many years, it is there to help us all understand the world no matter where we are or who we are. Let us all use it.

Those of us who are keen to move to kJ could do with a more convincing argument (rather than sensible suggestions) than anything I have seen so far. For me, getting rid of pounds, ounces, feet and inches is a much greater priority, and here there are plenty of excellent reasons.

Incidentally, it is kWh and not kW/h

..or 3.6 Mj (I think)

3.6 MJ actually. (Better me nitpicking than some confounded imperialist)

Brian AC if you want to work things out and relate different energy production/consumption situations then you fall into the “scientist” camp and whatever you may think you are in the minority of the population who can handle equations and understand simple scientific principles – most people cannot and do not want to.

Rarrar: you claim to be a physicist – have you wondered where physicists (and all the other scientists) come from? Yeah – they’re ordinary people who have trained up to become like that. Like you did.

The choice of what units to use for a purpose should not be up to whether or not any of the intended users are “scientists”. Choose the unit for good (scientific) reasons. That way, if a scientist wants to make use of the information, he/she can. As for everyone else, well it’s just a number to be totted up, in this case to see if you’re eating too much.

Since it’s “just a number” then a scientifically-good number should surely be preferable to a less scientifically good number? Some “ordinary” children will grow up (as you did) to become scientists (even physicists!) The fact that a mother used to tot up kJ on the food labels to keep an eye on her weight means that her children are at least basically familiar with the Joule and its multiples, and later when they train up to become scientists, that’s not an issue they’ll have to dwell on for long.

It’s the same argument for metricating the roadsigns. 99% of people won’t care, the distances and speeds on the signs are just numbers. But for those people who are (or will become) engineers it *is* important – it gets them familiar with the system they need in the “real world”. You know – the “real world” outside Britain, the one that uses km and km/h in daily life for everything involving distances and speeds. The “real world” with whom we do most of our trade and for whom we want to be building stuff, designing stuff and generally making Britain Great again.

D*mn! I just mentioned the “M” word. Forget that – the food labelling question has nothing to to do with being metric or not (both alternatives are metric). Sorry!

While I agree that in the perfect world we would all be using proper SI units and agree that moving to kilometers would be a good idea – because most of the world uses them and maps do; I see little advantage in dumping Calories in favour of kJ for food data.

You are absolutely right that reluctance to change is the biggest problem here. An accurate conversion is not needed, so if I should eat 2,500 kcal a day, I can have 10,000 kJ instead. It would be good if government did something to help move us forward. The NHS advice does not mention kJ, kcal or even Calories, but uses ‘calories’.

But I’m not sure if Which? has any involvement with endangered bamboo-eating mammals. 🙂

Wavechange, yes you are right.
The luddite government, NHS and even worse the D(a)fT all holding out for good old fashioned daft units.
Confusion conquers the masses

You are missing the same fact as most of the others.
If we all used the same universally derived units of measurements then the conversion tables would not be nessesary.
It is so ingrained into our (UK) culture (from the use of the Imperial system) that we need to convert everything to something else before we can use it, that we seem to loose sight of the fact that by using a standardised set of units these conversions are not requiered.
This helps us medically, mentally and mathematically challenged old folk to at least understand in part the meaning of life.

As mentioned above, the NHS could do with encouragement, but it would help to get those who write books and magazines about food and slimming on our side.

In answer to my own question

Article 6 on page 6
1. The declaration of the energy value and of the proportion of
nutrients or their components shall be numerical. The units to be used
are the following:
— energy — kJ and kcal
— protein
— carbohydrate
— fat
— fibre
— sodium
— cholesterol milligrams (mg)
— vitamins and minerals the units specified in the Annex

2. Information shall be expressed per 100 g or per 100 ml. In
addition, this information may be given per serving as quantified on
the label or per portion, provided that the number of portions contained
in the package is stated.

This comes into effect on 12th December 2014

Perhaps Which? could ask Flora light (“margerine”) why the FoP gives this information per 10 g on the lid and on the bottom of pack the same information it is per 100 g.
Talk about over doing the information, duplicity and confusion.
Yes, I know it is only a decimal point, but I can hardly read either even with reading glasses.
What chance would I have in store with my standard glasses?

I imagine that 10 g is considered to be a portion. Other brands of spread have a portion size of 12 g, so I guess that the manufacturer decides on portion size. Having all manufacturers give nutritional information based on 100 g makes sense.

Chuck it in the bin and relish the taste and texture of nice bread without ghastly grease. 🙂

Brian – Well done finding this on the EU Law website. I gave up trying. Having both kJ and kcal is a sensible start, in my view. Hopefully kcal will disappear in the next revision.

It’s good to see the use of sodium rather than salt, for the reason I explained elsewhere. I did manage to find how the nutritional value of fibre is calculated, which I have been wondering about for some time.

I’m looking at a 500g (and that is the only weight given) box of Jordans Supreme Muesli, produced in the UK, but in Canadian bi-lingual English / French retail packaging.

The Nutrition Facts panel species the energy content “Per 3/4 cup (55 g)” for “Cereal only” and “With 1/2 cup 2% milk”.

The units are in Calories – 210 and 280 respectively.

Yes, you read that correctly. The energy content is expressed in Calories per fractional cup (6 fluid ounces of cereal and 4 fluid ounces of milk). So much for Canada being totally metric.

Here’s an example: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/label-etiquet/nutrition/cons/index-eng.php

I have just checked a jar of French honey in my cupboard. All that has on it is the weight of 500g and a best before date of 05 May 2009, so no nutritional values back then. Maybe I should bin that someday, along with all my French 2 pin plugs. Nice Acacia honey though.

‘Wavechange’ probably poses the most sensible question yet: what does everyone else do?

After all, when it comes to road speed-limit signs, the metric counties all use km/h. Now, that’s not the S.I. unit for speed (or velocity to be precise), but it is metric, and it is the same choice of unit for the 95% of the world. Had some countries plumped for m/s instead of km/h the usefulness of everyone’s signs would have been diminished, despite it (again) being a metric vs. metric issue.

So whether that labelling is strictly S.I, I’d agree is less important than what everyone else does, but it would be sad to have to agree to use an inferior unit that suffers from such a fundamental disorder as the “calorie vs. kilocalorie vs. Calorie” naming screwup.

Even if kcal did prevail, could it please be enacted in whatever laws are applicable that the label must read “Energy content (per serving/per 100g/per kg): 200kcal” rather than the current convention which seems to be “Calories per : 200” which fails to inform its readers that these “Calorie” things (whatever sort we’re even talking about) are a unit of energy in the first place. Labelling it with the words “Energy content” does at least make people aware that it isn’t pixie dust….

I’d rather see “Energy content (per serving/per 100g/per kg): 840kJ”, but that’s just me. Whatever happens, *one* system must be decided-upon and used, not another hellish “supplementary units” compromise cop-out of the sorts our government is famous for….

wavechange.. asks how food is labelled in other countries.
The following link has a short video on how to read food panels and nutrition panels in Australia and NZ. In the examples given kilojoules (kJ) are mandatory and kilocalories (kcal) or Calories (Cal) can be supplementary. These values are always shown as being units of energy unlike the example in the photo in the Which Conversation article here which just shows a number. This puzzles me, by displaying the world “Calories 150” its just a number. Calories, kilocalories, and kilojoules must always be shown as units of energy.

Sadly the Australians are way ahead of us on this matter. They have no hesitation on displaying energy as kilojoules, the SI unit for energy. I have also been told that some organisations such as the Diabetes Foundation in both Australia and NZ, have changed their brochures, pamphlets, etc from Calories to kilojoules. This is a direct result of kilojoules only, being on nutrition labels. Its part of the public education of SI energy units.

I like the example provided by w j g. The New Zealand website not only uses kJ but shows the sodium content of food rather than salt content. It is only the sodium content of salt (sodium chloride) that is a health issue. How long will it take for the world to wake up to the fact that there are other sources of sodium in food?

This makes a good point.
It is the mis use of words by the media that perpetuates problems.
Simply by using a different, more correct word, most of the problem is solved and a terminology issue does not arise.

I don’t know Malc, but in view of the fact that the EU has decided what information should be given to consumers (see above) they might take care of ensuring that the print is big enough to read. The EU has its uses sometimes.

The way most of the which? articles are written I don’t think progressive thinking is likely to happen.

After all the comments here, I was sad to see that my latest copy of “Which?” magazine featured a review of various competing chocolate digestive biscuits which mentioned how many calories each one “contained”.

It seems that most postings here show support for the idea that, regardless of whether it’s calibrated in kcal or kJ, the energy content of food should be labelled as “Energy content per 100g: “. Can’t the editors of “Which?” even reflect *that* much of the debate taking place here into the magazine??

Gordon: This is nothing to do with imperial measures…….

“There’s no instance of Joules being understood in popular culture”.

Well, that’s a problem, and that (if true) is a good reason to change. Our youngsters need to understand Joules along with the rest of the weights and measures system or we’ll never be able to generate sufficient scientists and engineers to drive our nation up in the world rankings and out of this recession.

“most Ethnic British whites regard America as Britain’s Allie (sic) much more than the E.U. ”

Sorry – what’s the E.U. got to do with the fact that the Joule is the S.I. unit of energy?

This is being driven by a new EU requirement to show both kJ and kcal. Hopefully the next step will be to get rid of kcal.

It costs as much as they can get you to pay for it, that’s called capitalism. Though they probably loss lead ordinary beans a bit if they are likely to end up something like a Which? comparison shopping basket or if the industry has got one of its “1000 cheapest items” price war going on.

The problem is that the vast majority of people are familiar with ‘calories’. I think this should always be written as Calories or kcal to distinguish them from the calorie that a scientist would use. Incidentally, it’s kcal and not kCal.

It seems logical to label food with kJ and kcal to help the public make the transition to kJ only. Prior to decimalisation in 1971, prices were shown in the new and old system for at least a year and the old £sd gradually disappeared after the changes had been introduced. This change was helped through by the fact that we had to use the new currency.

When we have labelling in kJ and kcal, those writing cookery books and recipes should get on and support the move to kJ. I am not optimistic because many writers stuck with Fahrenheit and I think it was that the oven manufacturers that helped us to move to from Fahrenheit to centigrade.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who compares the nutritional information of products and wonders why similar products differ so much. Unlike the ‘non-brewed condiment’ used in fish & chip shops, proper vinegar is fermented and could contain different amounts of acetic acid, protein and carbohydrate. As explained on Wikipedia, the description ‘distilled malt vinegar’ is a misrepresentation, since vinegar is not distilled.

Trading Standards seem to devote their time on major issues such as dangerous counterfeit goods being imported in bulk, and I very much doubt that they would be interested in dodgy nutrition labels.

The easy way to avoid the confusion is to use Cal to represent kcal, or better to use kJ so there is no possibility of confusion.