Khubz and rakak: what the two rows describe
Khubz is the round, flat white bread served with grills, rolled around shawarma and torn up to scoop hummus, sold fresh from bakeries and in bags in many sizes. Rakak, or regag, is a different bread: dough spread paper-thin on a hot iron plate until dry and crisp, eaten plain in the Emirates and Bahrain, with a topping cooked on, or broken into other dishes.
Both are section 1 rows of the Bahrain tables, which say some section 1 values came from the tables of countries Bahrain imports food from, without marking which. Neither row names a bakery, flour or size: read them as reference values, not a test of your bakery's loaf.
Rakak's fibre reads "not published" above because the source printed a symbol, not a number, in that cell. It is not zero, and it is not estimated here.
Why rakak carries more energy per 100 g
Of the four figures both rows publish, rakak is higher on three: 372 kcal against 297, 12.5 g of protein against 8.5 g, and 79.8 g of carbohydrate against 63.1 g. Fat is the one that goes the other way, at 0.4 g in rakak and 1.2 g in khubz.
Most of the difference is water. The tables also print water for each bread, and rakak's figure is far lower, as expected of bread baked thin on a hot surface until brittle. Less water per 100 g leaves more room for the solid bread, so carbohydrate, protein and energy rise together; set the water aside and the two breads are much closer.
That does not make a rakak portion bigger: a sheet is thin and light, a khubz loaf thicker and moister. The per-100 g figures compare density; the weight of what you ate says how much you had.
Mostly carbohydrate, with some protein
Carbohydrate is by far the largest figure in both rows and makes up most of each bread's weight. Protein comes next among the nutrients shown, 8.5 g per 100 g in khubz and 12.5 g in rakak, but carbohydrate outweighs it several times over. Fibre is the smallest figure in the khubz row, at 0.4 g, and the bread analysed is white, not wholemeal.
On a training day both breads count toward your carbohydrate. The macro calculator splits a daily target into protein, carbohydrate and fat, and the protein calculator gives a protein range for your weight and goal. Eating more to build muscle? Rakak packs more energy into each gram than khubz, and the bulking calorie calculator sets a target for that.
Per piece or per loaf: weigh it
Searches often ask about one khubz, a small khubz or a whole loaf. These tables publish no weight for any of them or for a sheet of rakak, and khubz is baked in too many sizes for one per-piece figure to fit, so this page gives none.
- Weigh the bread on a kitchen scale. If the pieces in a bag look alike, weigh several and divide by the count for a working weight per piece.
- Search the food calorie calculator for khubz or rakak. Both breads are there, under the same records as the table above.
- Enter the grams; the result is the same record scaled to your portion.
- Count toppings and fillings as foods of their own: oil, labneh, halloumi or another cheese, an egg cooked onto rakak, a sandwich filling.
Weigh bread before you toast it: toasting drives off water, so the piece gets lighter while its energy stays, and the toasted weight would undercount it. Fried bread also takes up oil the row does not contain. The calorie calculator gives the daily total your bread is part of.
What these two rows do not cover
- Brown or wholemeal khubz. Only white Arabic bread was analysed, so how a brown loaf compares is not known here. It is listed on the food calories page with the foods that have no usable data.
- Chapati. Its only row reads like chapati flour or a dry product rather than cooked chapati, so it is under data review and sits on that same list.
- Pita from other databases. Pita and Lebanese bread are close relatives of khubz, but no American pita analysis is presented here as khubz. Saudi or Iraqi loaves and high-protein breads were not analysed separately; a packaged loaf's label describes it better.
- Other breads in the same table. Paratha and tannour bread have their own rows in the bread section, beside the za'atar and labneh pastries.
- Bread inside other foods. A shawarma sandwich was analysed whole, and the tables do not say which bread it used. Thareed, a stew served over bread, has rows under cooked dishes.
Everything here is general information about two breads from published tables, not a meal plan or dietetic advice. If you live with a medical condition or follow a prescribed diet, agree on your bread and other meals with your doctor or a registered dietitian.
Questions, answered.
How many calories are in one Arabic bread?
It depends on the piece's weight, and no loaf weight is published. Plain khubz is listed at 297 kcal per 100 g: multiply that by the grams of your piece and divide by 100, or let the food calorie calculator do it.
How much protein is in khubz?
8.5 g per 100 g for white Arabic bread and 12.5 g for rakak. In both, carbohydrate is several times larger, so most of what either bread adds to a meal is carbohydrate.
Why does rakak bread have more calories than Arabic bread?
Per 100 g it does, 372 against 297 kcal, mainly because it holds much less water. A thin sheet still weighs little, so a serving of rakak is not automatically more energy.
Does brown khubz have fewer calories than white?
These tables cannot say: brown khubz was not analysed, and the row here is white. Use the maker's label if your brown loaf has one; this page does not estimate it.
Is pita bread the same as khubz?
They are similar breads with overlapping names, but these figures are for the bread the Bahrain tables list as Arabic bread, not pita analysed elsewhere. If your loaf is sold as pita with a label, go by the label.