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Wednesday 21 February 2018

The key benefits of metrics in nutrition

HOW TO THINK METRIC LIKE OTHER SCIENTISTS

Nutrition Scientists use metric units of measure. They measure food energy in kilocalories, people’s height in centimeters, people’s weight in kilograms, and the weights of foods and nutrients in grams, milligrams, or micrograms.


For ease in using these measures, it helps to remember that the prefixes imply 1000. For example, a kilogram is 1000 grams, a milli gram is 1/1000 of a gram, and a microgram is 1/1000 of a milligram.

Most food labels and many recipes provide “dual measures,” listing both Volume: Liters (L) 1 L  5  1000  milliliters  (mL) 0.95 L  5  1 quart 1 mL  5  0.03 fluid ounces 240 mL  5  1 cup household measures, such as cups, quarts, and teaspoons, and metric measures, such as  milliliters,  liters,  and  grams.

This  practice gives people an opportunity to gradually learn to  “think  metric.” A person might begin to “think metric” by simply observing the measure—by noticing the amount of soda in a 2-liter bottle, for example.

Through such experiences, a person can become familiar with a measure without having to do any conversions..

The international unit for measuring food energy is the joule—the amount of energy expended when 1 kilogram is moved 1 meter by a force of 1 newton. The joule is thus a A liter of liquid is approximately one US quart. (Four liters are only about 5 percent more than a gallon.)


Weight:  grams (g) 1 g  5  1000  milligrams  (mg) 1 g  5  0.04 ounce (oz) 1 oz  5  28.35 g (or 30 g) 100 g  5  3½ oz 1 kilogram (kg)  5  1000  g 1 kg  5  2.2 pounds (lb) 454 g  5  1 lb © 2016 Cengage Learning measure of work energy, whereas the kcalorie is a measure of heat energy. While many scientists and journals report their findings in kilojoules (kJ), many others, particularly those in the United States, use kcalories (kcal).

To convert energy measures from kcalories to  kilojoules, multiply by 4.2; to convert  kilojoules to kcalories, multiply by 0.24.

For example, a 50-kcalorie cookie provides 210 kilojoules: 50 kcal  3  4.2  5  210  kJ One cup of liquid is about 240 milliliters; a half-cup of liquid is about 120 milliliters. A kilogram is slightly more than 2 lb; conversely, a pound is about ½ kg. A half-cup of vegetables weighs about 100 grams; one pea weighs about ½ gram.




REFERENCE

1. Thomas Harm & Tom Peterson/ Quest Photographic Inc. Stephen Barnes/Farming/Alamy A 5-pound bag of potatoes weighs about 2 kilograms, and a 176-pound person weighs 80 kilograms.

2. Tarasyuk Igor/Shutterstock.com Convert your body weight from pounds to kilograms and your height from inches to centimeters.

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