Calories in Seeds: Flax, Sesame, Sunflower and Poppy

By NYUS Inc. · Published 27 October 2026

A spoon of alsi on the curd, til on the sabzi, khus khus in the gravy or halim in a laddu: seeds are tiny, so they are rarely logged. They are also some of the most energy-dense foods on the table. This guide gives the calories, protein, fat and fibre per 100 g for six seeds from the ICMR-NIN Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (IFCT 2017), then turns them into a teaspoon and a tablespoon using weights that are ours, so you can see what a sprinkle adds up to.

The short answer

By IFCT 2017, the six seeds below hold between 423 kcal (poppy, G032) and 586 kcal (sunflower, H020) per 100 g. By our arithmetic, a tablespoon of about 10 g is between 42 and 59 kcal, and a teaspoon of about 3 g is between 13 and 18 kcal. Our reading: one teaspoon is small, but a few spoons a day across a salad, curd and a chutney add up to a snack's worth of calories that most people never log.

Calories, protein, fat and fibre per 100 g

Each row is one IFCT 2017 Table 1 row, per 100 g edible portion as listed in the book, mean values as printed. Energy is the book's kilojoules divided by 4.184, to the nearest kcal. Fibre is total dietary fibre. Each row was measured in 5 or 6 regions; the source note below lists the region count per row. All values are for the raw, dry seed.

Per tablespoon

The weight is ours, not from IFCT: we take a level tablespoon as about 10 g for every seed here, though a real spoon of light seeds can weigh less and a heaped one more. Each figure is the per-100 g value times 10, divided by 100, rounded to the nearest kcal and 0.1 g.

Per teaspoon

We take a teaspoon as about 3 g (ours). Same sums, times 3 instead of 10.

What stands out in the numbers

• Sunflower seeds are the densest here at 586 kcal and 51.85 g of fat per 100 g; poppy seeds are the lightest at 423 kcal. The whole spread is 163 kcal per 100 g.
• Poppy and flax seeds have the most fibre: 26.68 g and 26.17 g per 100 g, about 2.7 g and 2.6 g per tablespoon by our weight.
• Protein is similar across the six, 18.55 g to 23.53 g per 100 g, so a tablespoon gives 1.9 to 2.4 g. Our reading: seeds are a small protein add-on, not a protein source; our high-protein Indian foods guide shows the foods that are.
• A tablespoon of any of them is about 42 to 59 kcal. A tablespoon of sunflower seeds (about 59 kcal) is a little over half of a medium banana at roughly 105 to 110 kcal, by our banana guide's figure.

How to log it so the numbers hold

• Weigh once. Spoon your usual amount onto a kitchen scale and note the grams; then scale the tables to your weight.
• Log it as its own item. A seed sprinkled on curd, salad or sabzi still counts; the rows are for the plain seed.
• Roasted, ground and sweet forms are not these rows. Til laddu, chikki, gajak and ground seed mixes carry jaggery, sugar or ghee on top; see our jaggery vs sugar guide for the sweet part.
• Compare with nuts. Our dry fruits and nuts chart uses the same sums for almonds, walnuts and peanuts.

Where NYUS fits (our app)

We make NYUS, so read this as ours. NYUS is an AI fitness and nutrition coach in early access on Android, with no ads and no data selling. You log foods yourself by searching 8,900+ Indian and global foods or by barcode, and a weekly check-in adjusts your calories, macros and step goal once enough is logged. Barcode coverage of Indian packaged foods is not complete, so search by name when a scan finds nothing.

What this page leaves out

• A calorie or protein target: we have not looked up one for any person, so we give none.
• Brown sesame (H010, measured in 4 regions), niger, safflower and pine seeds: IFCT 2017 lists them, but this page covers the six common seeds above. We found no chia or pumpkin seed row in IFCT 2017, so we give no numbers for them.
• Roasted, ground or sweetened seeds and any laddu, chikki or mix: no IFCT row we could use.
• Anything about weight, health or what a seed does to your body: the page adds up food data and makes no claim about it. If you have a food allergy or a medical condition, ask your doctor or dietitian.

Sources

• ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (IFCT 2017). Table 1, protein, fat, total dietary fibre and energy per 100 g edible portion, read from the PDF on 27 Oct 2026: H014 (linseeds, 6 regions), H009 (gingelly seeds, black, 6), H011 (gingelly seeds, white, 5), H008 (garden cress seeds, 5) and G032 (poppy seeds, 6) on PDF page 55, and H020 (sunflower seeds, 5) on PDF page 56. Energy converted from kJ at 4.184 kJ per kcal.
• Our banana guide, read on 27 Oct 2026, for the medium-banana figure of roughly 105 to 110 kcal.
• nyus.in, the NYUS landing page, read on 27 Oct 2026 for the app statements in the NYUS section and the CTA.

The spoon weights (10 g and 3 g), the sums, the rounding and every sentence starting "Our reading" are NYUS's own arithmetic or opinion, not from a study. Names in brackets (alsi, kala til, safed til, halim, khus khus) are our matching to the IFCT row names.

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