Question

A fast-food item contains 544 nutritional calories. How do you convert this energy to joules?

Answer 1

By using the conversion factor of 4.184 Joules per calorie.

Explanation:

It is important to realize that when the term 'nutritional calorie' is used, they mean kilocalorie (= `1000` calories).

It is known that 1 calorie is approximately `4.184` Joules.

This means that 1 kilocalorie = `1000*4.184` Joules = `4184` Joules

Your fast-food item contains 544 kilocalories which compares to: `554 * 4184` = `2317936` Joule = `2.32 * 10^6` Joule

Note that the exact conversion factor for calories to Joules depends on temperature and atmospheric pressure