Australian nutrition glossary
The Australian terms that trip people up, defined plainly: kilojoules (1 Cal = 4.184 kJ), the 8,700 kJ daily benchmark on menu boards, Health Star Ratings, and the FSANZ databases the numbers come from.
Kilojoule (kJ)
The metric unit of food energy used on Australian labels and menu boards. One dietary calorie equals 4.184 kilojoules, so 8,700 kJ is about 2,079 Cal.
8,700 kJ
The average adult daily energy intake used for Australian menu labelling. When a board says an item is 30% of your daily intake, 8,700 kJ is the denominator.
Calorie (Cal)
In food labelling, a kilocalorie. Used in most American nutrition content, and shown alongside kilojoules in Australian apps.
Health Star Rating
A voluntary front-of-pack rating from 0.5 to 5 stars, calculated by manufacturers under the Australian Health Star Rating system. It rates a product against others in its category, not against whole foods.
FSANZ
Food Standards Australia New Zealand, the agency that sets the food standards code for both countries and publishes the Australian Food Composition Database.
AFCD
The Australian Food Composition Database, formerly NUTTAB, the reference nutrient data for Australian foods. Licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 AU.
AUSNUT
An FSANZ dataset of foods, recipes and dietary supplements used in national nutrition surveys, still widely cited for composite Australian dishes.
Open Food Facts
A collaborative open database of packaged food panels, licensed under ODbL, used for barcode data worldwide including Australian products.
Halal snack pack (HSP)
An Australian takeaway dish of hot chips topped with doner meat, cheese and sauces. A medium serve is roughly 6,900 kJ.
Snag
Australian slang for a sausage. A Bunnings sausage sizzle snag on white bread with onion and sauce is about 1,100 kJ.
Parmi or parma
A crumbed chicken schnitzel topped with tomato sauce and cheese, usually served with chips. A pub serve with chips runs near 5,400 kJ.
Menu labelling
Australian state laws requiring large food chains to display kilojoules on menu boards, alongside the 8,700 kJ average adult daily intake statement.
Energy density
Kilojoules per 100 g. It is the number that tells you whether a food is easy or hard to overeat, independent of serve size.
Macros
Protein, fat and carbohydrate. Protein is the one most people undershoot when they cut energy.
Trend weight
A smoothed average of daily weigh-ins, used instead of a single morning number because daily weight swings with water, food and salt.
Stop guessing the number
OzCal logs this in about five seconds: snap it, scan the barcode or say it. Kilojoules the way the label shows them, on 26,600 verified Australian foods.
Keep reading
Citing this page. OzCal (2026). "Australian Nutrition Glossary: kJ, Health Stars, AFCD | OzCal". Retrieved from https://ozcal.com.au/glossary. Last updated 2026-09-15. Figures are per the serve stated in each row, converted at 1 Cal = 4.184 kJ. A plain-text version of this page is available at https://ozcal.com.au/glossary.md.