Calories in Indian home cooked food?

Thanks to food regulations, its quite easy to know how many calories are in your bag of chips, or that bar of chocolate. Even restaurants have started providing the calorie count for their foods. But one gray area for calorie counting is Indian home food.

Most people assume that home food is healthy. While it might be healthy in some households, it can’t be used as a blanket statement. Beyond using quality fruits and veggies, there are three factors that decide how ‘healthy’ it is:
- Additives like oil, sugar, etc. These can really pack on the calories.
- Cooking process: Overcooking veggies can deplete them of some nutrients.
- Portion sizes: Clearly larger portions means more calories.
Note that many spices like cinnamon, pepper, turmeric, coriander and cumin are almost calorie free, but are high on antioxidants.

For most types of non Indian food cooked at home, there are plenty of websites which provide calorific value. But honestly, cooking ingredients and portions vary a lot, and using these standard calorie counters is not accurate enough.

Calorie estimation of home food can be done with a few simple tools. First you need a small weighing scale- easily available in the market. And some measuring spoons and cups. Also, get hold of a calorie chart for basic grains, veggies and fruits that you use. There are plenty of websites that provide calorie count of these also. We have used FitDay in the past, since it provides a breakdown of nutrients beyond the basic calorie count.

Using these measurement instruments, you can figure out the weight of your cooking ingredients. And for each of the ingredients, look up the calorie count by weight. Lets take an example- yellow dal. As a standard, raw dal pulses provide 4 calories per gram. Say you use a 100 gms for cooking. You add water (0 calories), salt and spices (negligible calories) and 1 tbsp olive oil (119 calories). The total dish is about 520 calories. Say this produces 8 cups of dal. That is about 65 calories (520 divided by 8 ) per cup of dal. Similarly, its easy to tell the calorie count of a cheese omelette- how much cheese, how many eggs, and other ingredients- add the calories to get the total value.

As standard values, 1 gm of carbohydrates provides 4 calories, 1 gm of protein provides 4 calories and 1 gm of fat provides 9 calories.

This might seem a little involving, but once you’ve figured out the basics, it gets much simpler. To make it easier, you can just take a printout of the calorie count of the basic foods that you use. Most of us repeat many of the standard food items and they’re cooked the same way each time, so very soon, you’ll have the calorie counts for all your home foods.

While calorie counting is important, its important to consume healthy food rich in nutrients. 100 calories of chips and fruits have the same calorific value, but very different nutritious value. So, besides the quantity, the quality of calories is equally important!

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