🌾 Grains & Pasta Nutrition Guide & Calorie Comparison

Grains & Pasta nutrition table (per 100 g)

The table lists every grains & pasta entry in the CalorieInsight database with its calories, macronutrients, net carbs, fibre, sodium and energy density per 100 g. Tap any name for full nutrition facts, ounce and pound conversions, and a serving calculator.

Data: USDA FoodData Central (public domain, CC0). Net carbs are total carbohydrate minus fibre. Values are for raw or as-described foods and are general information, not medical or dietary advice.

Energy density: why the same 300 calories look so different

Energy density is calories per gram, and it is the number that decides how much food you actually get for your calorie budget. Across this category it runs from 3.56 kcal/g (buckwheat, whole grain, medium) to 5.17 kcal/g (chia seeds, dry, raw, high). That means 300 calories buys you 84 g of buckwheat but only 58 g of chia seeds — the same calories, a 1× difference in the amount on your plate.

Medium energy density — portion size starts to matter, so weigh it if you are tracking closely. Neither end is "good" or "bad": lower-density foods win when you want volume and fullness, higher-density foods win when you are trying to eat more calories than your appetite comfortably allows.

Best grains & pasta for your goal

Every pick below is just the table above sorted a different way — no editorial ranking, no sponsorship. Open a food to scale it to your real portion.

Eating in a calorie deficit

The lightest options here are Buckwheat (356 kcal/100 g), Flour (357 kcal/100 g) and Flour (357 kcal/100 g). Build the bulk of a meal from these and spend the rest of your budget on protein. The full cross-category list lives at low-calorie foods.

Protein per calorie

When calories are capped, protein per calorie matters more than protein per 100 g. The leaders here are Einkorn (4.1 g protein per 100 kcal), Flour (4.1 g protein per 100 kcal) and Khorasan (4 g protein per 100 kcal). Compare them against every other food in the high-protein foods list.

Low carb and keto

By net carbs (total carbohydrate minus fibre), the lowest are Sorghum bran (33.7 g net carbs/100 g), Chia seeds (38.3 g net carbs/100 g) and Flour (59.4 g net carbs/100 g). Nothing in this category clears the usual 5 g net-carb screen, so treat these as portion-controlled additions rather than staples. See also low-carb foods.

Gaining weight or bulking

The most calorie-dense entries — Chia seeds (517 kcal/100 g), Sorghum bran (403 kcal/100 g) and Flour (389 kcal/100 g) — are the easiest way to add calories without adding bulk to a meal. More at high-calorie foods.

How many grains & pasta pass each nutrition screen

These thresholds follow the FDA's per-100 g nutrient-content conventions and are applied to the raw USDA values, so you can see at a glance what this category is good for.

• 26 of 41 — High protein (≥ 10 g/100 g) · see the full list
• 16 of 41 — High fibre (≥ 5.6 g/100 g) · see the full list
• 41 of 41 — Low sodium (≤ 140 mg/100 g) · see the full list

How to use these numbers

Per-100 g values are the fair way to compare foods, because serving sizes differ wildly between them. Once you have picked a food, open its page and set your real portion in grams, cups or pieces — the serving calculator scales every nutrient for you.

To turn this into a plan: work out your daily target with the calorie calculator, split it into protein, carbs and fat with the macro calculator, then log what you eat in the free calorie tracker. Nothing here costs anything and no account is required.

Where these numbers come from

Every value on this page is derived from USDA FoodData Central, the reference database maintained by the US Department of Agriculture and released into the public domain (CC0). Each food page names the exact FDC record behind it so you can check the source yourself. Averages, medians, net carbs, energy density and protein-per-calorie figures are calculated from those values at build time — nothing on this page is estimated or hand-written.

Two things worth knowing when you compare rows: cooking changes the numbers (water loss concentrates calories per 100 g, added fat raises them), and USDA entries describe unseasoned foods, so anything you add in the pan is extra. Weigh food raw when you can, and use the food page's serving calculator for your actual portion.

Ranked food lists

• 💪 High-Protein Foods — ranked by grams of protein per 100 g.
• 🥬 Low-Calorie Foods — ranked by calories per 100 g, lowest first.
• 🌾 High-Fibre Foods — ranked by grams of dietary fibre per 100 g.
• 🥚 Low-Carb Foods — ranked by grams of carbohydrate per 100 g, lowest first.
• 🍚 Low-Fat Foods — ranked by grams of fat per 100 g, lowest first.
• 🥑 High-Calorie Foods — ranked by calories per 100 g, highest first.
• 🚫 Low-Sugar Foods — ranked by grams of total sugars per 100 g, lowest first.
• 🧂 Low-Sodium Foods — ranked by milligrams of sodium per 100 g, lowest first.

Browse other food categories

• 🥦 Vegetables calories — 80 foods, median 33 kcal/100 g
• 🍎 Fruits calories — 44 foods, median 61 kcal/100 g
• 🥛 Dairy & Eggs calories — 40 foods, median 297 kcal/100 g
• 🐟 Fish & Seafood calories — 23 foods, median 81 kcal/100 g
• 🫘 Beans & Legumes calories — 20 foods, median 132 kcal/100 g
• 🥜 Nuts & Seeds calories — 19 foods, median 622 kcal/100 g
• 🥩 Beef calories — 15 foods, median 164 kcal/100 g
• 🍗 Poultry calories — 11 foods, median 153 kcal/100 g
• 🥓 Pork calories — 7 foods, median 168 kcal/100 g
• 🌭 Deli & Sausages calories — 6 foods, median 318 kcal/100 g

Or search the whole database of 321 foods on the foods index, and log anything you find in the free calorie tracker.