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A calorie counter for Indian food

Indian food is counted by the katori, the roti and the spoon of oil, and the same dal can have twice the calories in one home as in another. A calorie counter for Indian food has to start from those things, not from a database of packaged foods.

Why Indian food is hard to count

Most of what Indians eat is cooked at home or bought freshly made, so there's no label. The same dish name also covers very different food. A 200 ml katori of thin dal tadka has about 115 calories, while the same katori of thicker dal fry has about 180. Both are "a katori of dal".

Katoris themselves differ. A 150 ml katori of dal tadka is about 85 calories and a 250 ml one about 140. Rotis differ too: a phulka made from about 24 g of atta is about 75, a large roti from 40 g about 130.

Then there's oil. A teaspoon of oil or ghee is about 40 to 45 calories, and home cooks use very different amounts. Restaurant food usually carries more again: a home bowl of paneer butter masala with 50 g of paneer is about 230 calories, and a restaurant serving about 390 to 725.

What an honest number for Indian food needs

A number you can rely on, day after day, comes from a few plain things:

  • A recipe in grams, so you know how much atta, dal, oil and ghee went into the dish.
  • Values for Indian ingredients as they're grown and sold here, from the ICMR-NIN Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (IFCT 2017).
  • Portions in household measures, such as a katori, a roti, a plate or a glass, rather than grams you'd need to weigh.
  • The size of your own katori and roti, and how much oil your family uses.
  • Whether it was cooked at home or outside. Restaurant, delivery and street food usually have more oil and bigger portions.

IFCT 2017 lists raw ingredients, not cooked dishes, so every dish has to be worked out from a recipe. That's what the food calorie pages on this site do, with each recipe and source shown.

How to count Indian food better, with or without an app

  1. Measure your everyday katori once with water and a measuring jug. Knowing whether it's 150, 200 or 250 ml changes most of your numbers.
  2. Count rotis, not plates. Two medium rotis are about 190 calories; the dal and sabzi are separate.
  3. Notice the fat. A teaspoon of ghee on a roti, an extra tadka or a cube of butter on a paratha is often the biggest difference between two similar meals.
  4. Treat outside food as outside. A dhaba dal or a delivery biryani isn't the same as yours at home.
  5. Accept a range. Every calorie number is an estimate. Being consistent matters more than being exact.

Where Slate helps

Slate is a calorie journal for iPhone built around these facts. You type a line the way you'd say it, "2 roti aur ek katori dal", and Slate puts a number next to it.

The number is worked out on your phone from IFCT 2017 values and dish recipes in grams, then adjusted for your kitchen: your katori (150, 200 or 250 ml), your roti (6, 8 or 10 inches), your oil, and the sugar and milk in your chai. Restaurant, delivery, street and canteen food is counted as outside food, with more oil and a bigger portion, and you can switch any line to "Made at home". Tap any number to see how it was worked out, ingredient by ingredient.

AI is used only to read a line Slate doesn't recognise, and it never produces a calorie number. If Slate can't recognise a line at all, it shows a grey ↻ and counts it as zero rather than guessing.

What Slate won't do

Slate doesn't suggest a goal, a diet or a target weight, and it never praises eating less or comments on eating more. It's a journal and a set of numbers, not a coach. It's for adults, it's not medical advice, and it's on iPhone only.

Questions people ask

How many calories are in a typical Indian thali?

Add up what's on it. Two medium rotis are about 190, a 200 ml katori of dal tadka about 115, a katori of aloo sabzi about 185 and a 200 ml katori of rice about 160. Ghee, papad and pickle add more.

Are calorie numbers for Indian food accurate?

They're estimates, as every calorie number is. Recipes, katoris and oil vary from home to home, so the honest answer is often a range. Using the same method every day matters more than any single number being exact.

Does IFCT 2017 list cooked Indian dishes?

No. The ICMR-NIN Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 list ingredients such as atta, dal, vegetables, milk and oils. Cooked dishes have to be worked out from a recipe in grams.

Is Slate a calorie counter for Indian food?

Yes, written as a journal. You type what you ate the way you'd say it, in English or Hinglish, and Slate counts the calories, protein, carbs and fat for each line using Indian food composition data.