Nutrition Label Calculator
Build a nutrition label from macronutrient grams.
Enter protein, carbs, fat, fiber, sugar, and sodium to calculate total calories and FDA percent daily values.
Calories from macronutrients follow fixed conversion factors established by Atwater in the late 1800s and still used today on every nutrition label:
Protein: 4 kcal per gram Carbohydrates: 4 kcal per gram Fat: 9 kcal per gram Alcohol: 7 kcal per gram (not usually labeled)
Total Calories = (Protein x 4) + (Total Carbs x 4) + (Total Fat x 9)
Fiber technically provides about 2 kcal/g in practice (it is partially fermented in the colon), but the FDA allows manufacturers to subtract fiber from total carbohydrates for calorie counting purposes. This calculator uses the straightforward method — fiber stays in the carb total.
Percent Daily Values (%DV) on US nutrition labels are based on a 2,000 calorie reference diet, updated by the FDA in 2016:
- Total Fat: 78g
- Saturated Fat: 20g
- Sodium: 2,300mg
- Total Carbohydrate: 275g
- Dietary Fiber: 28g
- Protein: 50g
These are reference points, not targets for every person. A 5,000-calorie endurance athlete and a 1,400-calorie office worker have wildly different actual needs.
The %DV guide on every label: 5% or less is low; 20% or more is high. That rule works for nutrients you want to limit (sodium, saturated fat) and nutrients you want enough of (fiber, protein).
The 2016 FDA label update added “Added Sugars” as a separate line because research increasingly linked added sugar — not naturally occurring sugar in fruit and dairy — to metabolic disease. Total sugars and added sugars now appear separately.
Calorie counts on labels can be off by up to 20% under FDA rules, and restaurant nutrition information is often less accurate than packaged food.