So letting someone know a fried what-have-you has six times the amount of calories as something else has absolutely no value? It is a fair position to argue that the burden lies with the consumer to ‘know’ that a plate of fries is probably worse for them than a salad, but if the proposal is designed to curb obesity through awareness, then caloric content is extremely useful. As far as ‘usable calories’ goes, caloric content of food items is determined using methods that take in to account digestive processes; they won’t erroneously conclude that a piece of wood has dietary value, even if it can be burned to do work. Accurate content labeling loses its usefulness once it tries to specify the effect it will have in every individual instance. One does not need to specify ‘how bad’ cigarettes are for different people in order to place a warning on them. As far as listing caloric content of food goes, having the information available can only allow consumers to make more informed choices.

From Free Online Dictionary “Any of several approximately equal units of heat, each measured as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C from a standard initial temperature, especially from 3.98°C, 14.5°C, or 19.5°C, at 1 atmosphere pressure. ”

Completely antiquated concept that shows how backwards food regulation actually is. My point: Gasoline is also very high in calories. The only useful measure might be “usable calories” but then this is going to vary wildly from person to person anyway.