Search over 500 foods — sourced from ICMR-NIN's official Indian Food Composition Tables (IFCT 2017) — enter a serving by weight or by piece, and add several foods together to see a full meal's calories and macros.
Each food's nutrition is stored per 100 grams, sourced from ICMR-NIN's IFCT 2017 — India's official government food composition reference.
Foods people naturally count rather than weigh (banana, egg, roti, tomato, onion, potato, apple) can be added by piece, using standard FDA/USDA 'medium' size references, converted to grams behind the scenes.
Adding multiple foods sums their scaled values into a running meal total.
Per serving: Nutrient (per 100g) × grams ÷ 100
By piece: Quantity × standard piece weight, then scaled the same way
Meal total: Sum of every added food's per-serving values
The food nutrition calculator adds up the calories, protein, carbohydrate, fat and fibre in a meal built from Indian foods. Its values come mainly from the ICMR-NIN Indian Food Composition Tables (IFCT 2017), which list nutrients per 100 grams of each food. You pick foods, enter the grams or number of pieces you ate, and it scales each food and totals the meal.
Home cooks, fitness enthusiasts, diabetics tracking carbohydrate on medical advice, and students studying nutrition all use it. It answers questions like 'How much protein is in my lunch of two rotis, dal and rice?' with numbers from India's own reference tables rather than foreign databases built around foods Indians rarely eat.
Most entries are raw ingredients, because raw values are standardised while cooked dishes vary with water, oil and recipe. Cooked rice and plain roti are the main exceptions.
1. Find the per-100 g values of each food from a composition table such as IFCT 2017.
2. Decide the weight you ate in grams. For foods counted by piece, multiply the number of pieces by a standard piece weight.
3. Work out the scale factor for each food: grams ÷ 100.
4. Multiply each nutrient's per-100 g value by the scale factor: nutrient = per-100 g value × grams ÷ 100.
5. Repeat for every food in the meal.
6. Add the scaled values of each nutrient across all foods to get the meal totals.
7. Optionally check the energy: protein × 4 + carbohydrate × 4 + fat × 9 should come close to the listed calories, with fibre and rounding explaining small gaps.
A food's composition is a property of the material, not the portion. If 100 g of toor dal contains about 22 g of protein, 50 g of the same dal contains half that. This is direct proportion, so every nutrient is multiplied by the same factor, grams ÷ 100. The totals for a meal are then a sum, because nutrients in different foods simply add. The method assumes the food you ate matches the sample that was analysed, which is reasonable for staples but less so for fruits and vegetables whose water content varies by season and variety.
Cooking changes weight without changing much of the nutrient content. Dal and rice absorb water and roughly double or triple in weight, while frying can remove water and add oil. So 100 g of raw toor dal and 100 g of cooked dal are very different amounts of food. When a table lists raw values, weigh the ingredient before cooking and divide by the number of servings. Mixing raw values with cooked weights is the single largest error in home calorie counting. The calculator labels each entry as raw or cooked for this reason.
IFCT reports energy in kilojoules, which this calculator converts to kilocalories by dividing by 4.184. The energy mostly comes from the macronutrients, and the general Atwater factors are about 4 kcal per gram of protein and carbohydrate and 9 kcal per gram of fat. Fibre contributes little usable energy. Composition tables give averages, and real foods vary with variety, soil, storage and processing, so a meal total is best treated as an estimate within roughly 10%. For medical diets, a registered dietitian can help interpret the numbers.
Pooja is logging a typical weekday lunch: two medium whole-wheat rotis, a bowl of toor dal made from 30 g of raw red gram dal, and 150 g of cooked white rice.
Roti (whole wheat, plain): 2 medium pieces × 40 g = 80 g; per 100 g: 297 kcal, 7.9 g protein, 36.4 g carbs, 3.7 g fat
Red gram dal (raw): 30 g; per 100 g: 330.8 kcal, 21.7 g protein, 55.23 g carbs, 1.56 g fat
Rice (white, cooked): 150 g; per 100 g: 130 kcal, 2.7 g protein, 28.1 g carbs, 0.3 g fat
Roti, factor 80 ÷ 100 = 0.8: calories 297 × 0.8 = 237.6 kcal, protein 7.9 × 0.8 = 6.32 g, carbs 36.4 × 0.8 = 29.12 g, fat 3.7 × 0.8 = 2.96 g.
Dal, factor 30 ÷ 100 = 0.3: calories 330.8 × 0.3 = 99.24 kcal, protein 21.7 × 0.3 = 6.51 g, carbs 55.23 × 0.3 = 16.57 g, fat 1.56 × 0.3 = 0.47 g.
Rice, factor 150 ÷ 100 = 1.5: calories 130 × 1.5 = 195 kcal, protein 2.7 × 1.5 = 4.05 g, carbs 28.1 × 1.5 = 42.15 g, fat 0.3 × 1.5 = 0.45 g.
Add across foods: calories 237.6 + 99.24 + 195 = 531.84 kcal; protein 6.32 + 6.51 + 4.05 = 16.88 g; carbs 29.12 + 16.57 + 42.15 = 87.84 g; fat 2.96 + 0.47 + 0.45 = 3.88 g.
Answer: The lunch provides about 532 kcal, 16.9 g protein, 87.8 g carbohydrate and 3.9 g fat (plus about 11.3 g fibre), before any ghee or oil used in cooking.
Entering the cooked weight of dal or rice against a raw-ingredient entry, which can overstate calories two to three times.
Forgetting the oil, ghee or butter used in tadka, frying or on rotis; a teaspoon of oil adds about 45 kcal.
Assuming every roti or banana is the standard 'medium' size; home rotis vary a lot in weight.
Treating the totals as exact when composition tables are averages.
Using the numbers to manage a medical diet without advice from a doctor or dietitian.
Estimating protein intake in a vegetarian Indian diet.
Planning meals for a calorie or macro target set with a trainer or dietitian.
Comparing millets such as ragi, jowar and bajra with rice and wheat.
Home science and nutrition students practising calculations from IFCT tables.
Counting carbohydrate portions for a diabetic family member as advised by their doctor.
Where does this data actually come from?
The core dataset is ICMR-NIN's Indian Food Composition Tables (IFCT 2017), published by the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad — India's official reference, not a generic international estimate. A couple of prepared-dish entries (cooked rice, plain roti) are researched separately, since IFCT measures largely raw ingredients.
Why do some foods show 'raw' and others 'cooked'?
Cooking changes weight and nutrient concentration — a cooked dish's values depend heavily on how much water, oil or ghee was used, which varies a lot by recipe. Most entries here are raw ingredient measurements, which are far more standardised, with a couple of common cooked staples included using well-established figures.
Why can I add some foods 'by piece' but not others?
It only makes sense for foods people naturally count rather than weigh — a banana, an egg, a roti. Rice, dal, spices and most ingredients are better measured by weight, so piece-based entry isn't offered for those.
Is my meal saved for next time?
No — this works entirely in your browser for the current session. Refreshing the page or coming back later starts fresh, since there's no account or sign-up.
Can this replace a dietitian's advice?
No. This gives a general estimate based on standard reference values, not a personalised nutrition plan. Individual needs vary with health conditions, activity, and life stage — consult a doctor or registered dietitian for guidance specific to you.