That reminds me of the Tom Paxton song about "The Prince Who Was Eaten
by his Panties". The Prince decided unilaterally to change the meanings
of words so that they made more sense to him. So he called his dogs
"panties" because they ...
The word "calorie" does not mean the energy in food in a general sense.
The phrase that seems to have escaped Dr. Lulu Hunt-Peters is "caloric
content". The word "caloric" is a general word relating to energy in the
form of heat or that can be easily transformed into heat" (my definition).
The calorie is a unit of measurement used to state the values of energy
contents in food. In fact, that is exactly what Dr. LuLu Hunt-Peters has
used it for by the mere process of preceding "calorie" with a numerical
value. So, when one says "100 calories of bread", one means "bread
containing 4.3 kilojoules of energy" (though it seems she lowercased the
"c").
John was entirely correct, from what I've seen here by email. And the
good doctor is, pardon me, a Lulu.
Jim
Pat Naughtin wrote:
Dear John,
A close reading of this article will reveal that the word calorie is
used on each occasion as a synonym for the word 'energy' and not as a
unit for measuring energy. This is in keeping with Dr Lulu Hunt-Peters
1918 goal of changing the meaning of the word calorie to mean the energy
in food when she wrote:
'… hereafter you are going to eat calories of food. Instead of saying one slice
of bread, or a piece of pie, you will say 100 calories of bread, 350 calories of pie.'
This reference might help with this
topic: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg34909.html
By the way, it is interesting to look at the time it takes for a new
word or a new realistic definition of a word takes to enter the public
consciousness. Here are three examples:
Weight vs mass Defined by Isaac Newton in 1687 Still widely unknown and
misunderstood after 323 years
Energy vs power Defined by the BAAS in 1889 Still widely unknown and
misunderstood after 121 years
Calorie vs kilojoule Defined by the BAAS in 1889 Still widely unknown
and misunderstood after 121 years
Note: there's an oddity. I wrote calorie with a lower case c and because
it was at the beginning of a line and the beginning of a sentence my
word processor kindly change the lower case c to an upper case C and in
doing so altered the value of the calorie to a Calorie – 1000 times
larger than I intended! Oh, well, I'll leave it as the calorie and the
Calorie have both been deprecated by the BIPM since 1948 anyway.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, /Metrication Leaders Guide,/ that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped
thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern
metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save
thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their
businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different
trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and
government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's
clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the
metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA.
See http://www.metricationmatters.com
<http://www.metricationmatters.com/>for more metrication information,
contact Pat at [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> or to get the free
'/Metrication matters/' newsletter go
to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
On 2010/02/22, at 05:50 , John M. Steele wrote:
Why would Australia post fast-food nutritional info in Calories when
they use kilojoules?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/fast-food-outlets-could-be-forced-to-provide-calorie-counts/story-e6frf7jo-1225832750633
[snippets quoted]
*FAST-food outlets may be forced to provide a calorie count on their
products in a radical plan to fight Victoria's diabetes epidemic.*
Premier John Brumby has ordered a top-level inquiry to counter the
effect of the millions of fast-food meals consumed every week. . . .
The new plan is based on a similar program in New York and would make
it compulsory for major fast-food outlets across the state to have the
calorie content on menus. . . .
Ms Stanton said the one problem with the plan was the use of calories
when the Australian metric system measured food energy in kilojoules.
Mr Brumby said: "Calorie disclosure at fast-food stores is proving
successful in other parts of the world, such as New York.
[end]
When you copy ideas, be sure to adjust for local conditions. :)
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
