Food calories

What it's for

A quick table of calories and macronutrients of common foods, handy to count calories, balance meals or follow a diet without searching everywhere.

Note

Values are indicative per 100 g and can vary by brand, cut and cooking. «P» is protein, «C» carbs, «F» fat.

Raw or cooked changes everything

This is the biggest source of error in counting calories, and it isn't a detail: 100 g of dry pasta is about 350 calories, 100 g of cooked pasta about 150, because cooked pasta is two thirds water. The opposite holds for meat, which loses water as it cooks and so concentrates: 100 g of raw chicken breast becomes about 70 g cooked, with the same calories as before.

The practical rule for never getting it wrong: always weigh in the state the figure is written for. If the number is for raw, weigh before cooking; if it's for cooked, weigh after. The two don't get mixed within the same day.

The cooking method is an ingredient

The calories on this page are the food's, not the dish's. A tablespoon of oil is about 90 calories and it disappears into the pan: a sautéed vegetable can be worth double the same vegetable steamed, and deep frying absorbs between 5 and 15% of its weight in oil. When a count «doesn't add up», the cooking fat is nearly always the explanation, far more than the main ingredient.

The numbers are averages, and rightly so

An apple doesn't have a value, it has a range: it depends on the variety, on ripeness, on how much water it took up. Nutrition tables use averages from analyses, and even labels have tolerances allowed by law. So chasing the single calorie makes no sense: what counts is the order of magnitude and consistency over time, not the precision of one day.

The figure worth more than any other, and the one a table like this shows, is energy density: how many calories sit in a hundred grams. That's what explains why a plate of vegetables fills you up for very little and thirty grams of nuts carry as much as a light meal while fitting in one hand.

Nearby tools

For daily needs and the split between protein, fat and carbohydrate there are Macronutrients and Calorie deficit; for basal metabolism Basal metabolic rate. For the quantities to prepare Servings per person.