# calorie bomb



## Encolpius

Hello, do you use the word *calorie bomb* in your language or a langue you know. I am not even sure it is used in contemporary English. Wiktionary says: (colloquial) _Food that contains an excessive and usually unhealthy amount of calories_. 

*Czech: kalorická bomba*

Thanks a million. 
Encolpïus


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## alfaalfa

Ciao 


Encolpius said:


> do you use the word *calorie bomb* in your language?


Sure. In  Italian we say _bomba calorica._


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## grassy

Polish: _bomba kaloryczna.

_


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## apmoy70

In Greek we say either *«θερμιδική»* [θer.mi.ði.ˈci] (fem.) - - > _calorie_ or *«διατροφική»* [ði.a.t̠ro̟.fi.ˈci] (fem.) - - > _nutritional_ «βόμβα» [ˈvo̟m.va] (fem.) - - > _bomb_


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## pimlicodude

Russian: калорийная бомба


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## Awwal12

pimlicodude said:


> Russian: калорийная бомба


While it's not entirely unknown, I must mention that Google contains only 116 actual unique search results for "калорийная бомба" (nom.sg.), so it doesn't look like a fully established term either.
P.S.: Probably that's caused by the fact that the Russian adjective калорийный typically means "high-calorie", which creates a kind of multi-level tautology here.


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## pimlicodude

Awwal12 said:


> While it's not entirely unknown, I must mention that Google contains only 116 actual unique search results for "калорийная бомба" (nom.sg.), so it doesn't look like a fully established term either.


Well, I don't think the phrase "calorie bomb" means anything in particular in (good) English either. Or at least, younger speakers and/or American speakers like neologisms, and this may mean something to them - but not to me. Calorie Bomb is in the Urban Dictionary online - that site is a compilation of trendy words, youth slang, etc. As an English-language copy-editor once, I would have edited out any words found in the Urban Dictionary.


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## Sobakus

pimlicodude said:


> Well, I don't think the phrase "calorie bomb" means anything in particular in (good) English either. Or at least, younger speakers and/or American speakers like neologisms, and this may mean something to them - but not to me. Calorie Bomb is in the Urban Dictionary online - that site is a compilation of trendy words, youth slang, etc. As an English-language copy-editor once, I would have edited out any words found in the Urban Dictionary.


I think the crucial difference is that the English expression is perfectly well-formed and semantically unquestionable. The metaphor is transparent: “a sudden release of a large amount of calories is an explosion” + “food is a container of energy”. The only thing that can be said against the expression is that it hasn't found its way into major dictionaries yet.

Meanwhile in Russian, калорийный's everyday meaning is “high-calorie, fattening”, and in general the language is nowhere near as prone to forming idiomatic adjective+noun expressions as English is to forming noun+noun idiomatic quasi-compounds. One would be hard pressed to tell whether the English expression was coined in English or translated, while the Russian one sticks out immediately as a piece of translationese.

Bonus: the expression seems to originate in German, in the technique of bomb calorimetry, which measures the actual amount of energy produced by an object (incl. foodstuffs) if oxidised (burned) completely. Needless to say, that's not how the human body absorbs energy.


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## Encolpius

pimlicodude said:


> Well, I don't think the phrase "calorie bomb" means anything in particular in (good) English either.


Yes, that was my feeling, too. I have thought, too, it does not exist in English. So do you have something similar, better in English? I am wondering now which language the word has been invented in?


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## pimlicodude

Encolpius said:


> Yes, that was my feeling, too. I have thought, too, it does not exist in English. So do you have something similar, better in English? I am wondering now which language the word has been invented in?


I don't mean to say that no native speaker uses it - but most of these new phrases are looked at askance by older native speakers. You can just say "a type of food very high in calories". Or maybe "a calorie-dense item of food". [I don't like "a food", as a countable noun, but it can be found in native speech, and is also a newer usage.]


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## Encolpius

I bet the English word "calorie bomb" will be a common word in the next 10-15 years, let's come back later and read my comment.  I think there are -isms (Germanism?) even in English, no? Mostly in American English. Too bad there are no comments from Americans here.


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## pimlicodude

Encolpius said:


> I bet the English word "calorie bomb" will be a common word in the next 10-15 years, let's come back later and read my comment.  I think there are -isms (Germanism?) even in English, no? Mostly in American English. Too bad there are no comments from Americans here.


Well, yes, the centre of gravity of the English language is only going in one direction...


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## HilfswilligerGenosse

In German, *Kalorienbombe* is a normal, colloquial term for any food that is high in calories. _Vorsicht/Achtung, das ist eine Kalorienbombe! or Das ist aber eine Kalorienbombe..._


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## elroy

I've never heard "calorie bomb" in American English.

@Encolpius, if you want more opinions, you might want to ask in the English Only forum.


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## Trisia

Romanian: bombă calorică

I'd expect to find this in a women's mag, probably referring to pastries and giant pretzels. We do love our soft giant pretzels here.


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## amikama

Hebrew: פצצת קלוריות


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## dojibear

There is a group of people in the US who are very concerned with "being fit", "not being overweight", "eating healthy", "losing weight". They count the number of calories in everything they might eat. For those people, a food item with a lot of calories in it is "bad". It is so bad that it might be called a "bomb" -- a "calorie bomb".

But that isn't everybody, or even most people. It is not part of the English language. I have never heard it spoken, so I don't think it is common in speech.


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## Armas

Finnish: _kaloripommi_.
Btw. there is a yogurt called _Hedelmäpommi_ (Fruit bomb) since 1968, which is also the most popular yogurt in Finland.


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## Nanon

French: bombe calorique.


Armas said:


> Btw. there is a yogurt called _Hedelmäpommi_ (Fruit bomb) since 1968, which is also the most popular yogurt in Finland.


There is an old-fashioned ice-cream dessert, _bombe glacée_, prepared in a spherical mould to resemble a... frozen bomb (a cannonball rather than a bomb, actually).


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## Anemona61

Serbian: kalorijska bomba.


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## se16teddy

Nanon said:


> There is an old-fashioned ice-cream dessert, _bombe glacée_, prepared in a spherical mould to resemble a... frozen bomb (a cannonball rather than a bomb, actually).


My parents tell the story about how they were helping out with catering at Bradford Cathedral when the Queen visited many years ago, and somebody said "the bomb is in the fridge", referring to this kind of bombe. It caused a flurry of activity among the security guards.


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## Awwal12

Nanon said:


> (a cannonball rather than a bomb, actually).


Original "bombs" actually were hollow cannonballs filled with gunpowder inside and equipped with fuses. Other military and popular usages of the word are obviously more recent.


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## Nanon

Awwal12 said:


> Original "bombs" actually were hollow cannonballs


True, this is why they still look like this in comics, emojis, etc...: 💣
@se16teddy, you made me laugh... and remember a similar story that happen to me decades ago. I was on a plane of the now defunct airline Viasa. The take-off was being delayed and delayed again. Suddenly there was an announcement: "Tenemos un problema con una bomba..."
Passengers: Aaaaaaaaah!!! 
Crew: ... hidráulica.
Passengers: Pfffeeeeewwwwwww!!!!!!!!
_Una bomba_ means both a bomb and a pump in Spanish, but if there is a problem on a plane and you are not a mechanical engineer, the first thing that comes to your mind is... 💣


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## kentix

I haven't heard it before (not that I remember).

There are five examples in the COCA American English database. Basically in magazines with health focuses. That's not nothing but it's not very many relative to other terms I've searched for.


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## piano_mary

Chinese: "热量炸弹" or "能量炸弹"。


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