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Discussion on Number Calories
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Member:
Aannk
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Posted on Friday, Oct 10, 2003 - 12:33 pm:
Dr. O.,
In perusing your article on nutrition, I figured out my mare should be getting 17.75 Mcal a day. I am wondering if a Mcal is not 1 million times a cal, or if I really need to have my horse eat 17.75 MILLION calories a day! Usually, mega is 1 times 10 to the 6th. Is it something different here? It would seem as though 17 thousand calories would be more realistic, as a pound of grain has something like between 1500 and 2000 calories in it.
Alicia
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Monday, Oct 13, 2003 - 12:01 pm:
The confusion comes from the human nutritional convention of a calorie really being equal to a kilocalorie (1,000 calories) in energy. When you look on food product boxes or in dietary books you will read in these "nutritional" calories. But when you look at scientific publications, even if about nutritional things, or equine nutriutional tables usually the scientific calorie is used and usually expressed in megacals. And yes your mare will consume 17 MCals of feed a day which, as you correctly estimate, if you were reading a box of Cheerios would be expressed as 1700 "nutritional" calories.
DrO
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Member:
Aannk
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Posted on Tuesday, Oct 14, 2003 - 10:19 am:
DrO,
Thanks, and you meant 17,000 nutritional calories, right?
Alicia
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Tuesday, Oct 14, 2003 - 12:49 pm:
No I meant 1700 but see now that my brain was passing gas when I did the mental calculations, thanks for the heads up. 17,000 "nutritonal cals" is correct.
DrO
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Member:
Aannk
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Posted on Tuesday, Oct 14, 2003 - 1:04 pm:
Thanks!
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