The U.S. Has embraced its use on food labels
The U.S. Has embraced its use on food labels despite the adoption of the kilojoule by other nations as well as criticisms it’s received over the years (opponents dubbed the calorie a “foolish food science” back in the early 20th century, while contemporary concerns criticize the practice of calorie counting). Countries such as Australia and France use the kilojoule, a metric unit, on their food packaging to express a food’s energy content. One calorie is equivalent to 4.184 kilojoules (while 1 kilojoule is equivalent to 1,000 joules). Dara Ford, a professorial lecturer of health studies at American University, said she thinks we still use the calorie because of historical precedent, despite our use of the metric system on other parts of the nutrition label. “We are used to the calorie and its calculation does predate the joule and the kilojoule,” she said. “It’s one of the most well-recognized tools from a nutrition-education perspective.” Why we stil...