Why do calorie counts only end with a 0 or 5?

Eh. Calories are a loose number. Also.. it kind of depends on how many grams you eat. So if you eat more than X grams.. you have more calories. Make sense.. kind of? :P I have a food scale for just this problem.

Few of us have a home calorimeter.

I meant to say more like.. the contents of a bag of food isn’t measured very precisely while theyre packing it. So a pack of chips could be more or less than say.. 5 grams, which is 150 cals. So your bag could have like.. 5.5 grams and have more cals. I’m trying not to be confusing :P
So most calories are “about” a number. Reason why its not ever 2,3,4,6,7,8,&9 :)

Calories are a unit of energy. It would be hard for them to measure the exact amounts in any food, so the numbers ending in 0 and 5 on everything are just approximations.

“If we look at the nutritional label on the back of a packet of maple-and-brown-sugar oatmeal, we find that it has 160 calories. This means that if we were to pour this oatmeal into a dish, set the oatmeal on fire and get it to burn completely, the reaction would produce 160 kilocalories (remember: food calories are kilocalories)—enough energy to raise the temperature of 160 kilograms of water by 1 degree Celsius. If we look closer at the nutritional label, we see that our oatmeal has 2 grams of fat, 4 grams of protein and 32 grams of carbohydrates, producing a total of 162 calories. Of these 162 calories, 18 come from fat (9 cal x 2 g), 16 come from protein (4 cal x 4 g) and 128 come from carbohydrates (4 cal x 32 g).” http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/question670.htm

There is enough uncertainty in the ‘varieties’ of oatmeal and technique to only warrant stating calories to some round number of practical everyday value to most of us consumers.

This reminds me of a question that I asked earlier, and I never got an answer! Maybe you will :)

thanks!

@pdworkin Lol.

@lefteh

“ANALYTICAL METHODOLOGY: ...FDA respects the worldwide consensus surrounding the applicability, specificity, sensitivity,accuracy, precision, and detectability of methods validated by AOAC International and continues to recommend the use of those methods in obtaining measures of nutrient content. Database developers should submit a table delineating proposed analytical methods for each nutrient, with accompanying information concerning specific validation of the method used by the on-site or commercial lab for the matrix of interest.” http://www.nutrientdataconf.org/PastConf/NDBC21/gov_upd.pdf

“AOAC International is a non-profit scientific association with headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA. It publishes standardised, chemical analysis methods designed to increase confidence in results of chemical and microbiologic analyses. Government agencies and civil organisations often require that laboratories use official AOAC methods.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOAC_International

And no, I’m digging out the details; they are ‘there’ for anybody to study.

Oooh, GA! Thanks! This is the first time my question has ever been answered on another thread.

Easier to calculate?

10 tortilla chips are around 140 calories. I had one, which means I ate 14 calories. It required a little math on my part, but it seems pretty precise to me.

@drdoombot : that makes sense, it’s just interesting how they always round off the larger number.