Calories in 40 common foods per 100 g, ranked

The ranking: calories per 100 g

We ranked 40 familiar foods by calories per 100 g (3.5 oz), using USDA FoodData Central values. Cooked foods are labelled as cooked; the rest are raw or as sold. Each name links to its full page.

#	Food	Calories per 100 g (≈)	Water
1	Celery	14	95%
2	Cucumber	15	95%
3	Romaine lettuce	17	95%
4	Zucchini	17	95%
5	Tomato	18	95%
6	Watermelon	30	91%
7	Strawberries	32	91%
8	Broccoli	34	89%
9	Skim milk	34	91%
10	Orange	47	87%
11	Apple	52	86%
12	Greek yogurt (plain, nonfat)	59	85%
13	Whole milk	61	88%
14	Banana	89	75%
15	Baked potato	93	75%
16	Lentils (cooked)	116	70%
17	White rice (cooked)	130	68%
18	Black beans (cooked)	132	66%
19	Egg (raw)	143	76%
20	Pasta (cooked)	158	62%
21	Avocado	160	73%
22	Chicken breast (cooked)	165	65%
23	French fries	168	62%
24	Atlantic salmon (cooked)	206	65%
25	Hummus	237	57%
26	Sirloin steak (cooked)	243	58%
27	Bagel	264	34%
28	Cheese pizza	268	46%
29	White bread	290	30%
30	Honey	304	17%
31	Sugar	387	0%
32	Cheddar cheese	403	37%
33	Chocolate chip cookie	451	7%
34	Semisweet chocolate	480	1%
35	Potato chips	532	2%
36	Bacon (cooked)	548	13%
37	Almonds	579	4%
38	Peanut butter	598	1%
39	Butter	717	16%
40	Olive oil	884	0%

The full list of 157 foods is a free CSV download. It is open for anyone to reuse.

What a 100-calorie portion looks like

A 100-calorie portion is a very different amount of food depending on the food. About:

• 667 g of cucumber, close to two whole cucumbers
• 192 g of apple, a bit more than one medium apple
• 112 g of banana, one small banana
• 77 g of cooked white rice, a little under half a cup
• 25 g of cheddar cheese, a small cube
• 17 g of almonds, about 14 nuts
• 11 g of olive oil, under one tablespoon

Why the range is so wide

Water has no calories, so the more water a food holds, the fewer calories fit in each gram. In our dataset of 157 USDA foods, all 51 that are at least 85% water have at most about 85 calories per 100 g. All 26 that are 10% water or less have at least about 375. Fat is the other driver: it carries about twice the calories per gram of protein or carbohydrate, which is why oils, butter and nuts sit at the top. The Mayo Clinic describes this idea as energy density.

Protein density

Calories are only part of the story. Here are the foods in our data that give the most protein for their calories (foods under about 40 calories per 100 g and condiments left out).

#	Food	Protein per 100 calories (≈)	Calories per 100 g (≈)
1	Shrimp (cooked)	24 g	99
2	Canned tuna in water	23 g	86
3	Cod (cooked)	22 g	105
4	Egg white	21 g	52
5	Turkey breast	20 g	147
6	Tilapia (cooked)	20 g	128
7	Chicken breast (cooked)	19 g	165
8	Greek yogurt (plain, nonfat)	17 g	59

Lean fish, egg whites, poultry and plain Greek yogurt lead. Peanut butter and almonds have a lot of protein per gram, but the calories that come with it are high, so they rank far lower on this list.

What to do instead of guessing

• Check the weight, not the pile. A small handful of almonds has about as many calories as three cups of strawberries, and the bowl looks far bigger. Look at calories per serving as well as per 100 g.
• Watch the oils and spreads. One tablespoon of olive oil is about 119 calories, more than a whole medium apple.
• Mix dense foods with watery ones. Vegetables and fruit add volume for few calories.
• Remember that cooking changes the number. Rice and pasta soak up water, so cooked values are lower per 100 g than dry values.
• Treat every figure as an estimate. Brands, ripeness and cooking method all move the numbers.

About this data

Every value comes from USDA FoodData Central, a public-domain U.S. government database. We show calories rounded to the nearest whole number. To cite this page, link to it and name USDA FoodData Central as the original source.