Biryani calories and protein: meat biryani, per 100 g

Biryani, rice cooked with spices and with meat, chicken, fish or vegetables, is eaten in South Asia and around the Gulf. The Food Composition Tables for the Kingdom of Bahrain analyse one version, labelled Biriyani Laham, a biryani with meat, among their composite dishes: dishes prepared in Bahraini homes and analysed in the laboratory. Which meat went into it is not stated.

The recipe is not printed: not the rice, the meat or how much of it, the cooking fat, or whether potatoes, fried onions, yoghurt or eggs went in. Any of those can move the numbers, so the row describes one household recipe from tables published in 2011, not every biryani sold in the UAE today.

Figures are per 100 g of edible portion, bones excluded, and the printed energy is consistent with the protein, carbohydrate and fat beside it.

Water is the largest single part of the row, more than half its weight. Of the rest, carbohydrate leads by a wide margin: 25.4 g per 100 g, about three times the protein and four times the fat.

Protein comes second at 8.1 g, a little above the 6.4 g of fat. The chicken machboos in the same tables runs the other way, with its fat slightly ahead of its protein. Fibre is the smallest figure, 0.7 g per 100 g.

The protein figure belongs to the pot, not your plate: extra meat on your plate raises its protein, mostly rice lowers it, and the tables do not record how much meat the sample held.

Biryani and machboos are both spiced rice dishes cooked with meat or chicken, and the Bahrain tables analyse one of each among the same home-prepared dishes. Each is spiced and cooked its own way, so this compares two particular pots.

With carbohydrate almost identical, the gap in energy sits elsewhere: the biryani has clearly more protein, slightly more fat and a little less water. Why it had more protein is not recorded, and two other recipes could narrow the gap or reverse it.

• Chicken biryani. It has no analysis in the tables used here, and changing the meat changes the dish, so this figure is not used for it.
• A separate lamb, mutton or beef biryani. The tables do not name the analysed biryani's meat and have no row for any one meat.
• Vegetable, fish or prawn biryani. None was analysed.
• Other regional styles, such as Iraqi biryani. The tables hold one Bahraini household recipe.
• Biryani rice on its own. The pot was measured whole; subtracting the meat would give a number nobody measured.
• Restaurant biryani. The analysed pot was cooked at home.

Chicken biryani, mandi and kabsa sit in the no-data list on the food calories page, which explains why for each; its cooked dishes list has the home-prepared dishes that do have rows.

Searches ask for biryani per plate, per cup and per quarter or half kilo. No source behind this page publishes a standard serving, a plate from a shared tray can be any size, and a cup measures volume, so it holds more biryani pressed down than spooned in loosely.

1. Weigh what you will eat, leaving out the bones, since the figures cover only the edible part.
2. Open the food calorie calculator, type Meat biryani and choose the row.
3. Put in the grams. What comes back is the per-100 g figure times your grams, divided by 100.
4. Log sides such as yoghurt, curry or salad on their own lines, and skip any the calculator does not list rather than guess.

For the rest of your day, the calorie calculator estimates your energy needs and the macro calculator divides them between protein, carbohydrate and fat.

With roughly a third as much protein as carbohydrate in the row, protein is the part to check on a biryani day; the protein calculator suggests a daily amount for your weight and goal. In a muscle-gain phase, the bulking calorie calculator works out a daily surplus to log a weighed plate against.

This is general information about the make-up of one food, not dietary advice for you. Anyone managing a medical condition or a diet set by a clinician should let a doctor or registered dietitian decide where biryani fits.