Food Values,
measured by the portion you actually eat
Ninety-three calculators that turn a cup, a handful, a slice or a scoop into calories, macronutrients and five micronutrients. Every figure traces back to a named public source — and every page tells you what would change it.
Most food numbers fail on the portion, not the food
A “cup of rice” is 158 g cooked or about 185 g raw. That single ambiguity moves the calorie count by roughly a third — more than any rounding difference you will ever see between two databases.
So these tools start where you are. You measure what you have — grams on a scale, ounces on a label, cups from a recipe, or a handful because you are standing in the kitchen — and the calculator converts that to grams before applying any per-100 g value. The conversion assumption is printed on the page, not buried in it.
Each calculator covers one food and one nutrient question. That is deliberate. A page that answers a single question precisely is easy to check; a database that answers everything approximately is not. Where a food genuinely varies — ripeness, brand, cut, cooking method — the page says so and gives you a field to enter the number from the packet in your hand.
What you will not find here is a target, a plan, or a verdict about whether a food is good for you. These are reference numbers. What you do with them is your call, and in most cases a conversation with someone who knows your situation.
Seven groups, 93 calculators
Pick the group that matches what is in front of you. Each card is one food and one question — the line under the name tells you which nutrient and which unit. Within a group, tools are sorted by food and then by nutrient, so the same ingredient appears once per question it can answer.
Fruits
Whole, dried and juiced fruit differ more than most labels suggest. Drying removes water and concentrates sugar; juicing removes the fibre that slows it down.
Vegetables
Raw and cooked values are not interchangeable. Boiling leaches water-soluble vitamins into the water; roasting concentrates everything by driving water off.
Grains & Bakery
This is where cooked-versus-dry matters most. A cup of dry rice and a cup of cooked rice are roughly a factor of three apart.
Meat, Fish & Eggs
Cut, fat trim and cooking loss decide the number. The same weight of ribeye and sirloin can differ by more than 100 calories.
Dairy & Drinks
Alcohol, added sugar and fortification are the three variables that move drinks the most.
Nuts & Seeds
Small portions, high energy density. A handful is 28–35 g depending on the nut — and on the hand.
Snacks & Condiments
Serving sizes here are small and easy to misjudge. A tablespoon of ketchup is rarely what actually leaves the bottle.
How a number gets from the table to your screen
Every calculator in this group follows the same four steps. Nothing is interpolated to fill a gap, and no value is invented to make a result look complete.
Start from the portion you measured
Grams, ounces, cups, handfuls, slices, tablespoons, servings — whichever unit matches how you actually measured. The unit you pick determines the conversion factor.
Convert to grams
Cups, handfuls and slices are converted with a stated portion weight — for example 30 g for a handful of nuts, 150 g for a cup of cooked rice. The assumed weight is printed next to the field so you can disagree with it and type your own.
Apply the per-100 g value
The base figure comes from USDA FoodData Central for whole foods, or from the nutrition panel you type in for anything brand-specific. Cooked and raw states are kept separate — they are never averaged.
Scale, then round once
The value is multiplied by your portion and rounded a single time at the end: whole numbers for calories, one decimal for grams of macronutrients. Rounding twice is how calculators end up disagreeing by a calorie or two.
| Base value (USDA, cooked) | 130 kcal / 28 g carbs per 100 g |
| Scale to 150 g | × 1.5 |
| Result | 195 kcal · 42 g carbs |
| Same weight, raw rice | ≈ 540 kcal · 118 g carbs |
That last row is the whole reason these pages ask which state you weighed. It is not a rounding issue; it is water.
Where the numbers come from
Four sources cover everything on this hub. Each tool page names the one it used, so you can go and check it yourself rather than taking our word for it.
USDA FoodData Central
Whole-food values — fruit, vegetables, grains, meat, fish, nuts. We use the Foundation and SR Legacy entries rather than branded foods, so a value describes the food and not a manufacturer’s recipe. fdc.nal.usda.gov
FDA Daily Values
The %DV line on each result: 1,300 mg calcium, 18 mg iron, 4,700 mg potassium, 28 g fibre, 90 mg vitamin C, on a 2,000 kcal reference diet. These are US values and will not match a label printed for another market.
Your product label
For sauces, mixed dishes, drinks and anything sold by brand, no single value is honest. Those pages take the number from your panel — the calculator then does the arithmetic you would otherwise do on the back of an envelope.
USDA portion tables
Handfuls, slices, cups and servings are converted with published portion weights. Where a portion is genuinely ambiguous — a “slice” of pie, a “handful” of crisps — the page states the weight it assumed and lets you replace it.
Six things that change the answer more than the database does
If a number here disagrees with another site, one of these is almost always the reason. All six are stated on the individual tool pages rather than hidden in a footnote.
- Cooked or rawWater is heavy and calorie-free. Cooking removes it, so 100 g of cooked food contains more of everything except water.
- Variety and ripenessA ripe banana carries more sugar than a green one; a winter tomato less than a summer one. Values are averages across cultivars.
- Edible portionPeel, pit, rind and bone are usually excluded. If you weigh a whole avocado, about a third of that weight is not going to be eaten.
- Brand and recipeTwo jars of the same sauce can differ by 40% in sugar. This is why those pages ask for your label.
- FortificationVitamin C water, plant milks and breakfast cereals are fortified; whole foods are not. The same 100 g can be a different product.
- Rounding and the reference diet%DV is calculated against 2,000 kcal. If you eat 2,600, every percentage on the page is overstated for you.
What these tools are not
A calculator can tell you that 150 g of cooked rice contains about 42 g of carbohydrate. It cannot tell you whether that is the right portion for you, and it will not pretend to. If a number matters for a decision about your health, take it to a doctor or a registered dietitian along with the rest of your context — they have information this page does not.
Nor is this a substitute for the label on the packet in your hand. Where the two disagree, the label wins: it describes the exact product you bought, while our value describes the food in general.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the same food show different numbers on different sites?
Because "the same food" rarely is. Cooking method, water content, variety, brand and the reference database all move the number. A cooked value and a raw value for the same weight can differ by 30–70% for grains and vegetables. Each calculator states which state it assumes, and most let you type a value from your own label instead.
Should I weigh food raw or cooked?
Weigh it in the state you are going to log. If you weigh raw, use the raw value; if you weigh after cooking, use the cooked value. Water loss during cooking means 100 g of raw chicken is roughly 75 g cooked — mixing the two is the single most common source of a 25% error.
What does a "handful" mean in grams?
A handful is an informal measure, so the calculators use a stated default: about 30 g for nuts, 25–30 g for dried fruit, and 150 g for cooked rice. Every one of those pages lets you override the default, and we show the assumed weight on the page rather than hiding it.
Why is the Daily Value different from the label in my country?
Daily Values are set per jurisdiction. These tools use the US FDA values — 1,300 mg calcium, 18 mg iron, 4,700 mg potassium, 28 g fibre on a 2,000 kcal reference diet. The EU and UK use different reference intakes, so a %DV figure will not match a label printed for another market.
Can I use these for a recipe with several ingredients?
For mixed dishes there are dedicated pages — Caesar salad, sushi, wrap, trail mix, nachos — that add ingredient lines together. For anything else, calculate each ingredient separately and add the totals; that is exactly what the mixed-dish pages do internally.
Do the calculators store or send what I type?
No. Every calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is submitted to a server, stored, or attached to a profile, and there is no account to create.
Who checks this, and what happens when a number is wrong
How this hub is maintained
- Traceable by default. Every value on every tool page names its source — a USDA entry, an FDA Daily Value, or a label you supplied. There are no unsourced numbers on this site.
- Cooked and raw are never blended. Where a food is commonly eaten both ways, it gets two values rather than one average that is wrong for both.
- Corrections are welcome and acted on. If a figure looks wrong, tell us the food, the nutrient and the portion you used. We check it against the source table and correct the page rather than quietly adjusting the number. Contact the team.
- Reviewed on a schedule. Values are re-checked when USDA publishes a data release and whenever a reader reports a discrepancy. The date below is the last full pass over this hub.
The other three groups
If what you need is not a food value, it is probably one of these.