Food calories list, at a glance: this reference covers 200+ everyday foods — fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, fish, dairy, oils, and drinks — with calories per 100g so you can compare foods quickly and plan meals with confidence.
Whether you’re trying to lose weight, build muscle, or simply eat with more awareness, a reliable food calories list is one of the most useful references you can keep on hand. Instead of guessing how many calories are in your lunch or scrolling through a dozen different apps, this food calories list puts everyday foods side-by-side so you can compare them in seconds. Every number below is sourced from USDA FoodData Central, the same government database that nutrition labels and registered dietitians rely on.
This isn’t just a static chart, either. Once you know where a food sits on this list, you can pair that number with your own targets using our TDEE calculator to see exactly how it fits your day, or our protein calculator for weight loss if fat loss is the goal.
Nutrition apps are useful, but they can also be inconsistent — two different apps will sometimes give you two different calorie counts for the exact same food, depending on which database they pull from and how their user community has logged it. A single, USDA-sourced reference sidesteps that problem entirely. You get one consistent set of numbers you can trust, whether you’re checking a food at home, comparing options at the grocery store, or double-checking a number an app gave you that seemed off.
Most people who search for a food calories list are trying to solve one of three problems: they want to know if a specific food fits their daily budget, they’re comparing two similar foods to see which one is the smarter choice, or they’re building a meal plan from scratch and need real numbers to work with. This guide is organized to help with all three. Read straight through for the full picture, or jump to the category that matches what’s on your plate right now — fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes, meat and poultry, fish and seafood, dairy and eggs, oils and fats, or beverages are all covered below in this food calories list.
It’s also worth understanding, before you dive into the numbers, that a calorie is simply a unit of energy — the amount of energy your body gets from eating that food. Every entry in this list reflects the combined energy from protein, carbohydrates, and fat in that food, since each of those macronutrients contributes calories in different amounts (protein and carbs provide about 4 calories per gram, fat provides about 9). Understanding that breakdown is part of what makes a resource like this so useful: two foods can share the same calorie count while having very different effects on your hunger, energy levels, and muscle recovery, depending on how those calories are split between protein, carbs, and fat.
Full Food Calories List by Category
Below is the complete food calories list, broken into eight everyday categories. All values are calories per 100 grams unless noted, which makes it easy to scale up or down depending on your actual portion size.
Fruits
| Fruit | Calories (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| Apple | 52 |
| Banana | 89 |
| Orange | 47 |
| Strawberries | 32 |
| Grapes | 69 |
| Watermelon | 30 |
| Mango | 60 |
| Avocado | 160 |
Vegetables
| Vegetable | Calories (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| Broccoli | 34 |
| Carrot | 41 |
| Spinach | 23 |
| Potato (baked, with skin) | 93 |
| Sweet potato | 86 |
| Cucumber | 15 |
| Bell pepper | 31 |
| Tomato | 18 |
Grains & Legumes
| Food (cooked) | Calories (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| White rice | 130 |
| Brown rice | 123 |
| Quinoa | 120 |
| Oats (rolled, dry) | 389 |
| Lentils | 116 |
| Chickpeas | 164 |
| Black beans | 132 |
| Whole wheat bread | 247 |
Meat & Poultry
| Food (cooked) | Calories (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| Chicken breast (skinless) | 165 |
| Chicken thigh | 209 |
| Turkey breast | 135 |
| Lean ground beef (90/10) | 176 |
| Pork chop | 231 |
| Bacon | 417 |
Fish & Seafood
| Food (cooked) | Calories (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| Salmon | 208 |
| Tuna (canned in water) | 116 |
| Cod | 105 |
| Shrimp | 99 |
| Tilapia | 128 |
Dairy & Eggs
| Food | Calories (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| Whole milk | 61 |
| Greek yogurt (plain, 2%) | 73 |
| Cheddar cheese | 403 |
| Cottage cheese (low-fat) | 98 |
| Eggs (whole, boiled) | 155 |
Oils & Fats
| Food | Calories (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| Olive oil | 884 |
| Butter | 717 |
| Peanut butter | 588 |
| Almonds | 579 |
Beverages
| Drink | Calories (per 100ml) |
|---|---|
| Black coffee | 2 |
| Orange juice | 45 |
| Cola (regular) | 42 |
| Beer (lager) | 43 |
Keep in mind that this food calories list uses standard cooking methods and typical preparations — frying, heavy sauces, or added sugar can shift these numbers considerably, so treat each entry as a solid starting point rather than an exact match for every dish you make.
A few patterns are worth noticing as you scan this food calories list. Fruits and vegetables cluster at the low end, mostly because they’re high in water content and fiber, both of which add volume without adding many calories. Oils and fats sit at the opposite extreme — a tablespoon of olive oil can carry nearly as many calories as an entire plate of vegetables, which is why portion control matters more with fats than almost any other food group here. Grains and legumes land in the middle, offering steady energy along with fiber and, in the case of legumes, a meaningful amount of plant-based protein. Meat, poultry, and fish vary the most depending on the cut and cooking method: a skinless chicken breast and a slab of bacon are both technically “meat,” but they sit at opposite ends of the spectrum because of their very different fat content.
High-Protein Foods on This Food Calories List
If you scan back through the food calories list above, you’ll notice a pattern: chicken breast, turkey, tuna, cod, Greek yogurt, and eggs all deliver a large amount of protein for a relatively modest calorie cost. That combination — high protein, moderate calories — is exactly what most people chasing muscle gain or a leaner physique are looking for. Chicken breast, for example, sits at 165 calories per 100g while providing roughly 31g of protein, making it one of the most efficient entries on this entire food calories list.
To translate these numbers into a personal target, use our protein calculator to find out how many grams of protein you should be eating daily, then cross-reference that target against the high-protein rows here to build meals that hit your number without going over your calorie budget.
Low-Calorie Foods for Weight Loss
On the other end of this food calories list are the foods that let you eat a large volume for very few calories — cucumber, spinach, watermelon, tomato, and broccoli all fall under 35 calories per 100g. Building meals around these low-calorie, high-volume foods is one of the simplest ways to stay full while still creating the calorie deficit that weight loss requires.
If you’re not sure how large that deficit should be, our protein calculator for weight loss and TDEE calculator can both help you set a realistic daily calorie target before you start pulling numbers from this food calories list.
How to Read a Food Calories List: Per 100g vs. Per Serving
One of the most common mistakes people make with any food calories list — including this one — is confusing “per 100g” with “per serving.” A 100g reference makes it easy to compare foods apples-to-apples (an avocado at 160 calories per 100g vs. a cucumber at 15 calories per 100g), but your actual plate rarely holds exactly 100g of anything. A typical banana weighs about 120g, not 100g, so you’d multiply the 89 calories per 100g figure by 1.2 to get roughly 107 calories for that specific banana. Always check the weight of what’s actually in front of you before applying a number from a food calories list.
Tips for Using This List to Hit Your Daily Calorie Goal
- Start with your daily calorie target (from a TDEE calculator), then build meals backward using this food calories list.
- Weigh a few common foods once so you know what “100g” actually looks like on your plate — it makes every future reference to this food calories list far more accurate.
- Pair high-volume, low-calorie vegetables with a protein source at every meal to stay full on fewer calories.
- Revisit this chart weekly while you’re learning — most people internalize the numbers for their regular foods within a month.
- Don’t forget liquid calories — juice, soda, and alcohol are some of the easiest ways to blow past a calorie target without noticing.
- Batch-cook two or three proteins from the meat, poultry, or fish rows at the start of the week so you always have a known quantity ready to weigh and log.
- When eating out, round up — restaurant portions and added oil usually push real numbers higher than the plain, home-cooked values in a typical food calories list.
It’s also worth remembering that no single food calories list can capture every variable — regional produce, specific brands, and individual recipes will always shift the numbers slightly. Think of the values here as a dependable baseline rather than a lab-certified measurement, and adjust as you learn more about the specific foods and brands you buy regularly. Over a few weeks of cross-checking your own kitchen against this food calories list, you’ll start to build an intuitive sense of where most of your everyday meals land, which is ultimately more useful than memorizing exact numbers for every food you might ever eat.
Using This Food Calories List for Meal Planning
Once the numbers on this food calories list start to feel familiar, the next step is turning them into an actual day of eating. Here’s a simple example built entirely from foods above: two eggs (155 calories) and a slice of whole wheat toast for breakfast, a chicken breast (165 calories) with a large serving of broccoli and sweet potato for lunch, Greek yogurt with a handful of almonds as a snack, and salmon (208 calories) with rice and a mixed salad for dinner. Every one of those numbers comes directly from the chart above, which is exactly the point — once you’ve internalized a reference like this, building a balanced day of eating becomes a matter of addition rather than guesswork.
If your goal is muscle gain, lean on the higher-protein rows above — chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, Greek yogurt, and legumes — and pair them with enough rice, oats, or whole wheat bread to cover your energy needs. If your goal is fat loss, build meals around the lowest-calorie, highest-volume entries — leafy greens, cucumber, broccoli, tomato, and citrus fruit — while still including one solid protein source per meal so you stay full. For a deeper breakdown of how protein and calories work together for weight loss specifically, our protein per calorie chart and guide to calculating calories in food both build directly on the numbers in this food calories list.
Different life stages and activity levels also change how you’ll want to use these numbers. Athletes and people training for muscle gain generally need more total calories and more protein per meal, which our protein calculator for men and protein for teens guide both cover in more detail. If you’re following a low-carb approach, our keto calculator can help you see how the fat, oil, and protein rows above fit into a low-carbohydrate structure.
👉 Looking for a different tool?
Try our full collection of protein and nutrition calculators to turn the numbers in this food calories list into a personalized daily plan.
A good food calories list isn’t about obsessing over every gram — it’s about having a quick, reliable reference so you can make better decisions in the moment, whether that’s at the grocery store, in the kitchen, or scanning a restaurant menu. The numbers themselves come from established science: the FDA’s guidance on nutrition labels explains how calorie counts are standardized across packaged foods, while the NIH protein fact sheet is a useful companion if you want the research behind the protein side of these numbers. Bookmark this page, check back whenever a new food comes up in your meal planning, and pair it with our calculators whenever you’re ready to turn this food calories list into a plan built specifically around your body and your goals. You can also browse our full protein and nutrition FAQ for answers to the questions that come up most often once people start using a food calories list day to day.
