Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2019 March 17

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March 17[edit]

Energy obtained from alcohol and vinegar in the diet[edit]

How much energy do humans obtain from ingested ethanol or acetic acid? If any at all can be obtained, what's the process of getting the energy? --Doroletho (talk) 17:31, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP has an article on ethanol metabolism. catslash (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Energy obtained from food is usually expressed as Calories (although, confusingly, food Calories are equivalent to the physics energy unit of kilocalories). Pure ethanol has 7 kilocalories per gram, which acetic acid has 3.5 kilocalories per gram. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE
) 19:38, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the food Calorie should be capitalised to distinguish it from the standard calorie. 62.172.108.29 (talk) 10:05, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone who knows enough to capitalize it will put a "kilo" in front of it instead. ;) Wnt (talk) 01:44, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]