Food Calorie Calculator

Count calories for any food

Calorie counting is one of the most widely used approaches to diet tracking and weight management. Knowing the approximate calorie content of common foods helps you make informed choices about what and how much to eat. This tool provides approximate calorie values for over 60 common foods based on standard nutritional reference data.

How to use this tool

Browse or search for a food to see its approximate calorie count per typical serving and per 100 grams, which makes it easy to compare foods on an even footing regardless of how they are usually portioned. This is especially useful for spotting foods that look modest in a single serving but carry a much higher calorie density than expected once compared gram for gram against an alternative.

What are calories?

A calorie (kcal or kilocalorie) is a unit of energy. In nutrition, "calories" typically refers to kilocalories — the amount of energy needed to raise 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius. Your body burns calories for all activities: breathing, thinking, moving, and digesting food.

Calorie density by food group

Different foods have very different calorie densities per 100 grams:

Very low calorie (under 50 kcal/100g): Most non-starchy vegetables — lettuce (15), cucumber (15), spinach (23), tomato (18), broccoli (34), strawberry (32)

Low calorie (50–100 kcal/100g): Most fruits, dairy — apple (52), banana (89), orange (47), milk (61), potato (77), egg (155 — higher but small per unit)

Medium calorie (100–200 kcal/100g): Cooked grains, lean meats — rice (130), chicken breast (165), salmon (208), pasta (131)

High calorie (200–400 kcal/100g): Cheese, bread, fatty meats — bread (265), beef (250), dark chocolate (600)

Very high calorie (400+ kcal/100g): Oils, nuts, sugars — olive oil (884), almonds (579), peanut butter (588), sugar (387)

Reading nutrition labels

Packaged foods in most countries must display nutritional information per 100g and per serving. The per-100g value makes comparison between products easy. The per-serving value tells you how many calories a typical portion contains, though serving sizes defined on labels are often smaller than what people actually eat.

Macronutrients and calorie contribution

Each macronutrient provides a specific number of calories per gram:

• Carbohydrates: 4 kcal per gram
• Protein: 4 kcal per gram
• Fat: 9 kcal per gram
• Alcohol: 7 kcal per gram

This is why high-fat foods have high calorie density — fat contains more than twice as many calories per gram as carbohydrates or protein.

Why the same calorie count can feel different

Two foods with identical calorie counts do not necessarily affect hunger, energy or health the same way. A food high in fibre and protein tends to be far more filling per calorie than one high in refined sugar and fat, because fibre and protein both slow digestion and trigger stronger satiety signals. This is one reason "calories in, calories out" is true as an energy-balance principle but incomplete as practical dietary advice — the composition of those calories shapes how easy or difficult it is to stick to a given intake target day after day.

Weight management basics

The fundamental principle of weight management: eating more calories than you burn leads to weight gain; eating fewer leads to weight loss. One kilogram of body fat contains approximately 7,700 kcal. A daily deficit of 500 kcal leads to approximately 0.5 kg of weekly fat loss.

Food labels and nutritional databases

The calorie values in this tool are approximate reference values. Actual calorie content can vary based on the specific variety of a food, its ripeness or fat content, how it was prepared, and the part of the food used. Official nutritional databases with more detailed information include the USDA FoodData Central in the United States, the most comprehensive publicly available database with thousands of foods including branded items; the ONS Food Composition Tables in the UK; the Australian Food Composition Database; and the Tabela Brasileira de Composição de Alimentos in Brazil.

Macronutrient balance beyond calories

While total calorie intake determines weight change, the macronutrient composition of a diet affects other health outcomes too. Protein intake affects muscle mass preservation during weight loss, satiety and body composition. Fat quality, saturated versus unsaturated, affects cardiovascular health. Carbohydrate quality, including glycaemic index and fibre content, affects blood glucose control and gut health — which is why two diets with identical total calories can have quite different effects on how someone feels and how their body composition changes over time.

Fibre: the zero-calorie macronutrient

Dietary fibre is technically a carbohydrate but is not digestible by human enzymes, so it contributes essentially zero calories despite counting toward total carbohydrate grams on a nutrition label. Fibre from vegetables, legumes, whole grains and fruits provides bulk that increases satiety, feeds beneficial gut bacteria, slows glucose absorption and reduces cardiovascular disease risk. High-fibre diets are associated with lower risks of type 2 diabetes, colon cancer and heart disease, which is part of why nutrition guidance generally favours whole foods over refined ones even when the calorie counts look similar on paper.

Alcohol calories

Alcohol contains 7 kcal per gram, more than carbohydrates or protein but less than fat. A standard drink containing about 14 grams of alcohol supplies roughly 100 kcal from the alcohol alone, before counting any mixers, and beer, wine and spirits vary considerably in total calorie content due to differences in alcohol percentage and residual sugar. This is a commonly underestimated source of calories when tracking intake, since alcoholic drinks are often mentally filed under "drinks" rather than "food" even though they carry a real calorie cost.

Private and instant

All calculations run entirely in your browser, so results appear instantly and no data about what you eat or drink is ever sent to a server, logged or shared.