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There is a lot of articles among the Internet talking about the most caloric meals you can eat, but just out of curiosity, I would like to know which is the most caloric single ingredient you can add to you recipes.

At first I thought about sugar, but Wolfram Alpha gives an average result of 378 kcal/100 gr. So I tried with some other options and the winner so far is the extra virgin olive oil (very well known in my country, Spain), with an average result of 884 kcal/100 gr(1). Other similar products are sunflower oil, palm oil, and I suppose any similar oil.

So, is this the most caloric, edible ingredient? Or does anybody know of a more caloric one(2)?

(1) WA miscalculates the amount of fat in extra virgin olive oil, I don't know why. It says that there are 107 grams of fat in 100 grams of product, so I had to do a correction.
(2) According to the calculations in SZCZERZO KŁY's answer and following a clue given by MSalters's comment, lard has a bit more calories (902 kcal) per 100 grams of product. That should be (almost) the limit. These values seem to be taken from the National Nutrient Database made by the United States Department of Agriculture (olive oil, lard).

Weckar E.
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Charlie
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    The type oil should be largely irrelevant. – Catija May 22 '17 at 13:47
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    @Catija maybe you are right. Wolfram Alpha miscalculates the amount of calories in 100 grams of extra virgin olive oil as it calculates 107 grams of fat in 100 grams of product. All the other options (palm oil, sunflower oil, plain olive oil) have (according to WA) 100 grams of fat in 100 grams of product (correct) and have about 884 kcal per 100 grams. If you multiply 884*1,07 you get 945 kcal (about the amount calculated for the extra virgin olive oil). I'll fix the question. – Charlie May 22 '17 at 14:03
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    You say olive oil is common where you are... you could look at a bottle and compare to other oils. – Catija May 22 '17 at 14:27
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    You might want to specify if you want "most caloric" to mean "calories per gram" or "calories per cc" since density of e.g. olive oil is lower than for some other substances. – Floris May 22 '17 at 16:01
  • @Floris in order not to depend on density, I always talk about calories per 100 grams in the question. – Charlie May 22 '17 at 16:16
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    Yes - but you did say "most caloric single ingredient you can eat". And when your stomach is a finite size, density does come into it. I was just pointing out that your question was not unambiguous. And I think of oil as something you "drink". Does that count as "eating"? – Floris May 22 '17 at 16:17
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    Do you consider antimatter edible? – JDługosz May 22 '17 at 17:41
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    @JDługosz not sure if you can put antimatter in a recipe, but now I'm really curious... :-) – Charlie May 22 '17 at 18:51
  • @Catija been at the supermarket. Their olive oil has 822 kcal per 100 ml and their sunflower oil has 826 kcal. Lots of contamination there maybe, depending on density. – Charlie May 22 '17 at 20:13
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    @CarlosAlejo I come from a Stack Exchange where things are [“more interesting”](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/food) in this respect. – JDługosz May 22 '17 at 20:13
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    @ JDługosz: Antimatter olive oil is believed to still have 822 kcal per 100 ml. As antimatter olives are now pretty rare, we've never been able to get accurate measurements. Also, we'll need an antimatter olive press next time. – MSalters May 22 '17 at 21:41
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    Don't forget that, of the three food groups, you must have some dietary fat (the soundbite to remember is that you *heart* actually can *only* run on dietary fat), and you must have protein. You do not need any carbohydrates at all (any number of long-term tests have shown this, and certain primitive-peoples groups live with no carbs as a matter of course). – Fattie May 23 '17 at 16:54

4 Answers4

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Your question goes near the answer. As you can read on those nifty tables on products, calories come from mainly three sources: Fats, sugars and protein. There are also fibres, alcohol (that are not counted as carbs) like ethanol and organic acids but the first three is packed with them.
So fat have 9 kcal/g, carbs 4kcal/g and proteins also 4 kcal/g (ethanol have 7 kcal/g but you can't consume it in large quantity like fat).
And from simple math you can deduce that clean fat, like olive oil, is the most caloric, edible ingredient".

PS. Wolfram made a slight change to your question changing the "100 grams" to "107 grams" so that's why it's not "900 kcal/100 g"

Edit: I think the kcal of 1 gram of fat is not exactly 9. It may be around 9,0132 or something like that. That's why WA recalculate the amount and round up, and that's why lard seems to have more. Generally we say that fat is 9cal/gram

Lard can be considered "cleaner" fat as it is processed fat. So it's not contaminated with all those vitamins and micro and macro elements like olive oil.

SZCZERZO KŁY
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  • I didn't realized that the table in WA said "serving size 100 g, total fat 107 g". Maybe an error in the calculations engine? Nonetheless, thank you for your answer! – Charlie May 22 '17 at 09:44
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    While I could eat a litre of cake mixture once cooked, I couldn't drink a bottle of olive oil though. – djsmiley2kStaysInside May 22 '17 at 11:27
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    Not with this attitude. – SZCZERZO KŁY May 22 '17 at 11:31
  • I have fixed the question to reflect the proper calculations, if you want to update your answer too. Also, according to your calculations, I have found that **lard** has exactly 902 kcal/100 grams, a bit more than 100 grams of oil. – Charlie May 22 '17 at 14:13
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    "ethanol have 7 kcal/g but you can't consume it in large quantity like fat" - My liver would disagree with you on this point. ;) – gmiley May 22 '17 at 15:08
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    @gmiley actually I think that would be your liver *agreeing* with him ;) – Doktor J May 22 '17 at 15:14
  • @gmiley 50ml of 40% vodka have 16 grams of ethanol so regular 0,7 litre bottle have 224 grams of it. And even Jim Lahey couldn't drink whole bottle at one sitting. – SZCZERZO KŁY May 22 '17 at 15:15
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    @djsmiley2k CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! – hBy2Py May 23 '17 at 02:15
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I don't know about it being the most caloric ingredient, but arctic explorers eat butter to help provide the roughly 9000Cal per day that they need.

I assume this is a trade-off across a number of factors, such as energy content, ease of carrying, ease of portioning, behaviour in cold weather and so on. For example, pure oils probably have higher energy content but it's inconvenient to deal with something that's a liquid at room temperature and a solid at low temperatures.

David Richerby
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    Not bad. Butter has around 800 kcal/100 gr and it may be easier to eat and carry than olive oil. – Charlie May 22 '17 at 12:07
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    Butter is almost pure fat, which is why it has almost the energy density of pure fat. The fact that it's solid has nothing to do with the additions that drive down the energy density, though. Olive oil is rich in unsaturated fats; hydrogenating those will solidify them. Or you could bring rendered lard. – MSalters May 22 '17 at 13:45
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    @MSalters wasn't pemmican dried meat mixed with lard? Classic polar explorer food. – Chris H May 22 '17 at 14:13
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    @MSalters butter is actually only around 80-86 percent fat. – Dan C May 22 '17 at 14:25
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    @DanC: Indeed, with some proteins and lactose both @ 4kcal/g. That's how you can show that at 800kcal/g, 80% fat is the lower limit (that would be 900*80% = 720kcal from fat plus 400*20% = 80 kcal from proteins and sugars) – MSalters May 22 '17 at 14:39
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    Coconut oil is pretty much pure fat, and solid at room temperature (and certainly solid at temperatures that arctic explorers would be trekking around in)... – Doktor J May 22 '17 at 15:15
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    I heard of a cross-Greenland "on skis, unassisted" expedition that carried peanut butter as the main food source. Slightly less caloric (588 kcal/100 g), but a mix of fat, protein and sugar that provides both immediate fuel, protein to maintain muscle mass, and fat for greater caloric content. Plus it's a little less nasty to eat than pure butter. – Floris May 22 '17 at 16:03
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    See http://williamcolgan.net/blog/?tag=greenland&paged=2 which describes the requirement (in order to purchase valid "search and rescue insurance") to carry the equivalent of 30 kg of peanut butter per team member for a 21 day expedition... – Floris May 22 '17 at 16:06
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    Full calorie mayonnaise - unlike butter, it is palatable in obscene amounts if garnished with some fresh greens ;) – rackandboneman May 22 '17 at 19:20
  • @rackandboneman True, though mayonnaise loses you about another 100kcal per hundred grams. – David Richerby May 22 '17 at 20:51
  • Note the correlation: Fat, sugar, alcohol BURN :) – rackandboneman May 22 '17 at 22:17
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Lard (which is pure animal fat) is 902 calories per 100 grams.

Kim
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As mentioned, you are near the limit at 884 calories per 100g.

However, ghee, clarified butter, a common ingredient of Indian cookery, has 900 calories per 100g. I don't know of anything more calorific than this.

Philip Wallace
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