History of Calories
The Calorie as we know it today is derived from a series of studies originally meant to measure the efficiency of steam engines. The reason that we use it to measure the energy value in the foods we eat is that it was the only quantitative measure for energy available to Wilbur O. Atwater. Atwater's seminal works on nutrition provided some of the first scientifically driven links between food consumption and human health.
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Significance
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A Calorie is officially defined as "the measure of the amount of energy required to heat one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius."
Etymology
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"Calorie" comes from the Latin root "calor," meaning "heat."
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Theories/Speculation
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Other scientists of Clement's time were working on ways to measure energy: two French scientists, Favre and Silbermann, and a German physician named Julius Mayer. The academic jury is still out regarding who "invented" the Calorie as we know it now.
Expert Insight
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According to the U.N.'s World Food Programme (from a study conducted in 2008), 963 million people in the world live from day to day on a Calorie deficit. Compare this to daily Calorie consumption in the U.S., which was at a whopping 3,770 average Calories per day in 2004.
Fun Fact
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The word Calorie is a proper noun, though you'll rarely see it capitalized in mass culture.
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