The measures
The Anses composition table gives values per 100 grams and nothing else: it does not say what an egg, a banana or a beef patty weighs. Those weights get looked up while cooking, in front of a recipe that speaks in units, and that is what this page gathers. Weights are in grams, the unit the table is built on. For a quick conversion: 1 oz is about 28 g, and 1 lb is about 454 g.
The size is printed on the box, and it comes from European regulation 589/2008: S under 53 g, M from 53 to 63 g, L from 63 to 73 g, XL above, shell included. It is the only line on this page that is a standard rather than a custom.
That standard is European. In the United States the USDA sizes eggs by the dozen instead: Large is 24 oz per dozen, about 57 g an egg in shell, which lands inside the European M band.
| Part | Share | Weight | Energy per 100 g | Protein | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White · the heaviest part, and by a long way the least dense | 58% | 34 g | 47 kcal | 10.3 g | 0.2 g |
| Yolk · a third of the weight, and most of the fat | 31% | 18 g | 340 kcal | 16 g | 30.1 g |
| Shell · does not get eaten, and enters no calculation | 11% | 6 g | – | – | – |
Why this page does not add the three lines up. The three lines are measured separately by Anses. Adding them up in proportion to the parts gives a result a few percent away from the line for the whole egg, and this site does not put a figure it made up next to figures it read.
The weight of a common portion, for the 60 foods that have a page. These are usual orders of magnitude, not standardized measures: they turn a per-100-gram value into a credible portion.
| Food | Portion | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | One medium apple · flesh and skin, core removed | 150 g |
| Hard-boiled egg | One medium egg, size M · shelled, hard-boiled | 52 g |
| Banana | One medium banana · peeled flesh | 120 g |
| Potato | One medium potato · peeled, boiled | 150 g |
| Avocado | Half an avocado · flesh, no skin, no pit | 70 g |
| Sweet potato | One medium sweet potato · peeled, cooked | 200 g |
| Cooked rice | A cooked serving · about 66 g of raw rice | 150 g |
| Cooked pasta | A cooked serving · about 80 g of dry pasta | 175 g |
| Chicken breast | One cooked breast · about 150 g raw | 120 g |
| Plain yogurt | One standard pot · the most common size in France | 125 g |
| Fromage blanc | One serving · a small bowl | 100 g |
| Lentils | A cooked serving · about 61 g of dry lentils | 160 g |
| Chocolate croissant | One chocolate croissant · bakery size | 70 g |
| Croissant | One croissant · bakery size | 55 g |
| Doner kebab | A full kebab · pita sandwich, meat and raw vegetables | 350 g |
| Whole wheat bread | One slice · from a wholemeal country loaf | 40 g |
| Sandwich bread | One slice · standard prepacked slice | 30 g |
| Dark chocolate | One square · a square from a standard bar | 10 g |
| Margherita pizza | A whole pizza · single-serving pizzeria size | 400 g |
| Beer | A 25 cl glass · what a French bar serves as a demi | 250 g |
| Tomato | One medium round tomato | 120 g |
| Carrot | One medium carrot · peeled | 125 g |
| Broccoli | A cooked serving | 150 g |
| Cucumber | Half a cucumber · flesh and skin | 150 g |
| Green beans | A cooked serving | 150 g |
| Mushrooms | A pan-fried serving | 100 g |
| Clementine | One clementine · peeled | 50 g |
| Orange | One medium orange · peeled | 130 g |
| Walnuts | A handful of kernels | 30 g |
| Almonds | A handful | 30 g |
| Salmon | One cooked fillet | 130 g |
| Canned tuna | A small can · drained weight | 80 g |
| Ground beef | A supermarket patty · cooked weight | 100 g |
| Cooked ham | One slice | 45 g |
| Lardons | A gratin's worth | 60 g |
| Tofu | A pan-fried serving | 100 g |
| Rolled oats | A porridge's worth · dry flakes | 60 g |
| Couscous | A couscous plate · cooked grain | 180 g |
| Chickpeas | A salad serving · cooked | 120 g |
| Mozzarella | A whole ball | 125 g |
| Camembert | An eighth of a wheel | 30 g |
| Raclette cheese | A meal's worth | 120 g |
| Butter | A slice of toast's worth | 10 g |
| Olive oil | One tablespoon | 14 g |
| Honey | One teaspoon | 7 g |
| Sugar | One French sugar cube · the no. 4 size of French boxes | 6 g |
| Semi-skimmed milk | One glass | 150 g |
| Baguette | Half a baguette | 125 g |
| French fries | A medium serving | 150 g |
| Lasagna | One slice | 300 g |
| Quiche Lorraine | A sixth of a quiche | 150 g |
| Croque-monsieur | One croque-monsieur | 150 g |
| Sugar crepe | One sugar crepe | 60 g |
| Sushi | Six pieces | 160 g |
| Milk chocolate | Two squares | 10 g |
| Chocolate hazelnut spread | A slice of toast's worth | 15 g |
| Peanut butter | One tablespoon | 20 g |
| Applesauce | A retail cup | 100 g |
| Red wine | A small glass · 12.5 cl, a standard European pour | 125 g |
| Coffee | An espresso · black, no sugar | 40 g |
Most of the weights on this page are orders of magnitude. A handful are not, and each of them says why: the size of an egg, which is regulated; the conversion of volumes into mass; and above all the raw-to-cooked ratios of the starches, which come out of the table by dividing the energy of the raw food by that of the cooked one, the water taken up in the pot carrying no energy. That is the first trap in the arithmetic on starches: they get weighed raw and eaten cooked, and between the two the mass doubles.
Sizes S, M, L and XL come from European regulation (EC) No 589/2008: S under 53 g, M from 53 to 63 g, L from 63 to 73 g, XL above, shell included. That is a European rule and not an American one. In the United States the USDA sizes eggs by the dozen instead: Large is 24 oz per dozen, about 57 g an egg in shell, which lands inside the European M band. The shell is roughly a tenth of the egg, and the weights above have taken it off, since Ciqual measures the edible part.
The raw-to-cooked ratio is about 2.26 for white rice. It is not borrowed from custom: it comes out of the table itself, by dividing the energy of raw rice by that of cooked rice. Water taken up in the pot carries no energy, so the ratio of the energies is the ratio of the masses.
The dry-to-cooked ratio is about 2.18 for standard dry pasta, taken from the table by dividing the energy of the dry pasta by that of the cooked, the water taken up carrying no energy.
The dry-to-cooked ratio is about 2.62 for lentils, taken from the table by dividing the energy of dry lentils by that of cooked lentils. It is the highest ratio of this set: the pulse takes on more water than rice or pasta.
Volumes are converted to grams at one gram per milliliter. Beer is slightly denser than water, the gap stays under one percent, and it is smaller than the variation from one glass to the next. The two glasses above are French bar measures and not pints: a UK pint holds 568 ml and a US pint 473 ml, so neither matches the 50 cl poured here.
The drained weights are the ones printed on the common retail formats, smaller than the net weight: it is the second number on the label that gets eaten.
The 125 g ball is the standard size of the chilled aisle, and it is what sets the real portion: an opened ball keeps badly.
The one-eighth wedge is the one on retail labels, on a 250 g wheel.
Volume to mass: oil weighs slightly less than water at equal volume, so a 15 ml tablespoon holds fourteen grams. A US tablespoon holds 14.8 ml, close enough that the figure in grams does not move.
Volume to mass: honey is clearly denser than water, so a teaspoon holds seven grams where it holds five grams of water.
The cube known as no. 4 is the common size of French boxes and it weighs six grams: the most reliable measure in the cupboard, since it never overflows. A US sugar packet is lighter, around four grams, and a level teaspoon holds about five.
Baker's practice, not regulation: no rule sets the weight of a baguette, the ordinary one runs around 250 g and the tradition a little above.
The average piece of a retail tray, all formats together: maki, california and nigiri are not equal, and the average holds the range.
Volumes are converted to grams at one gram per milliliter, as for beer: the density of wine is very close to it. The two pours above are European measures; the US standard drink is 5 fl oz, about 148 ml, which sits between the two.
The fat content weighs more than the weight does: between a 5% and a 20%, the energy density very nearly doubles at equal mass. The figure printed on the label is therefore the first thing to read.
| Patty | Energy | Protein |
|---|---|---|
| 5% fat | 130 kcal | 21.9 g |
| 20% fat | 249 kcal | 17.2 g |
Questions
A medium egg, size M, weighs between 53 and 63 grams in its shell, and the size is printed on the box: it is one of the rare foods whose weight is set by regulation, European regulation 589/2008.
That is a European rule. In the United States the USDA sizes eggs by the dozen instead, and a Large is 24 oz per dozen, about 57 grams an egg in shell, which lands inside the European M band.
The shell is roughly a tenth of the weight. A 58 gram M egg therefore leaves about 52 grams of edible part, and that is the weight that goes into a calorie calculation.
On a whole egg, the white is about 58% of the weight, the yolk 31%, the shell 11%. For a medium 58 gram egg: roughly 34 grams of white, 18 grams of yolk and 6 grams of shell.
The yolk is by far the denser part: it concentrates almost all of the fat, while the white is close to nothing but water and protein.
The usual dose is 80 grams of dry pasta per person, which comes to a little over 170 grams once cooked. The ratio is about 2.18 for standard pasta, and it comes out of the Anses table rather than out of custom.
This is the first trap in calorie arithmetic on starches: weighing 100 grams of raw pasta and reading the cooked line more than doubles the real result.
Nothing gets weighed without a scale, it gets estimated. The weights on this page are usual orders of magnitude, not standardized measures: they turn a per-100-gram value into a credible portion, they do not replace a measurement.
Household measures help where the food has a natural unit: a level tablespoon of oil, a closed handful of nuts, one square of chocolate, one slice of bread. Weights are in grams here, the unit the table is built on: 1 oz is about 28 g, and 1 lb is about 454 g.
Two exceptions to the estimating: egg sizes, which are set by regulation and read off the box, and the cooking ratios, which are deduced from the table. For everything else a kitchen scale stays more accurate than any average weight.
The food pages give the calories and the macros of each portion, and the calculators say what a day asks for.
The compositions come from the Anses Ciqual table: Anses. 2025. Table de composition nutritionnelle des aliments Ciqual, published under Licence Ouverte 2.0. The weights are not from Anses: they are orders of magnitude recorded by Zemiam, apart from egg sizes, which are regulated, and the cooking ratios, which come out of the table. What a day asks for is worked out elsewhere.
The same page in French: Poids des aliments.
