What it is
Calories measure the energy in food, shown here in kilocalories (kcal) per 100 g. Oils, butter, nuts and seeds are dense in calories, and so are grains and flours. This page ranks foods by how many calories $1 buys, which is a measure of cost and not a judgement on any food. Water, fibre and fat all change how many calories a food has per gram, so foods in the same group can rank very differently. The list below uses Brisbane prices.
What foods are high in calories?
Per 100 g, the highest values are in macadamias, butter and pecans. By food group, Nuts and seeds has the highest average, at 601 kcal per 100 g.
- Per 100 g718 kcalMacadamias
- Per 100 g717 kcalButter
- Per 100 g691 kcalPecans
Highest per 100 g of the 155 foods on this site.
Calories per dollar
Each food's calories per kg is divided by its price per kg in your location, so the list shows how much calories $1 buys. For the bone-in cuts marked with *, I first multiply by the share that is meat. Foods with no price for your location are left out.
| Rank | Food | kcal per $1 |
|---|
Checking prices.
Approximate. Adjusted for the share of the cut that is meat rather than bone. See how I estimate this.
Notes and limits
2 of the 155 foods on this site have no calories value in USDA FoodData Central, so they are left out of these lists. Values are per 100 g of each food as described in its USDA entry, such as raw or dry.