The fact that an adult can convert traveling distances (km) into sight distances (meters) in their head is generally a useless feature, because people rarely have any reason to do so.
I do that all the time. Maybe because I can.
Or take the previously mentioned food energy. A bottle of olive oil has 40 MJ of energy. That is 40 megawatt-seconds; it will run a 100 W human or a 100 W lightbulb for 400 000 seconds or a 50 kW car engine 800 seconds. It is also 40 million newton-meters; it will lift a tonne 4 km. This gives a clear grasp of how much energy that is and what it can be used for.
Now, using the same 10 000 kcal bottle of oil, how long can you run a 50 horsepower engine or 0.1 horsepower lightbulb and how many miles can you lift a long and/or short ton?