Ghee and oil: the calories a photo cannot see

Fat is the densest part of any meal: about 9 kcal in every gram, more than twice the energy of the same weight of rice or dal. In home cooking it goes in at the start (the oil for the onions), in the middle (the masala) and at the end (the tadka, the butter, the drizzle). From above, a curry made with one teaspoon of oil and one made with three look the same.

That is why fat was the largest single gap when researchers checked photo calorie apps against weighed meals. See what photo calorie apps miss.

How much is a spoon?

The table below uses about 4.5 g for a level teaspoon and about 13.5 g for a level tablespoon. Real spoons vary, and a pour from the bottle is often more than either.

Where oil hides in home food

• Dry sabzis and stir fries soak up most of the oil in the pan. In a katori of bhindi masala as this site calculates it, the oil is more than half the energy. Compare bhindi masala with and without oil.
• Tadka and finishing butter sit on top and are easy to forget. See dal tadka.
• Fried onions in biryani and mujaddara hold more oil than they look like they do.
• Deep fried food such as falafel and fried plantain absorbs oil in amounts that depend on the heat and the cook.

The four levels

After a photo of a cooked dish, Homekcal asks for one of four levels: none, a little, normal or a lot. Normal is the amount in a standard home recipe for that dish; a little is half of it and a lot is double. The app remembers your choice for each dish, so if your family cooks with more ghee, you only say so once.