# Calories in Emirati and Gulf Food: Shawarma, Machboos, Karak, Luqaimat, Harees and More

> A sourced calorie table for 17 Emirati and Gulf dishes, from shawarma and machboos to karak, luqaimat, harees and grilled hammour, with the range behind each number and why published figures disagree.

Canonical: https://www.mycallie.app/en/blog/uae-food-calories
Published: 2026-10-23 · Updated: 2026-10-23
Author: Md Sadab Wasim · Source: https://www.mycallie.app

## Key takeaways

- Gulf dishes don't have one calorie number. A 400 g plate of chicken machboos comes out anywhere from about 430 to 940 kcal across the sources we compared, mainly because of oil, ghee and the rice-to-meat ratio.
- Some dishes are easy to pin down. Grilled hammour is about 236 kcal for a 200 g fillet (USDA grouper), and three Deglet Noor dates with gahwa are about 60 kcal. Three Medjool dates are about 200.
- The fat you can't see does most of the damage. One tablespoon of ghee or oil adds about 110 to 120 kcal, and a GCC food database mapped its kabsa recipe at 8% sunflower oil by weight.
- Gulf food is thinly covered by nutrition data. When researchers built an Arabic food composition database for the Gulf in 2021, 79% of its 2,016 items were generic UK entries.
- Obesity is still common in the UAE. MoHAP's 2024–2025 national survey found 22.4% of adults living with obesity, down from 27.8% in the 2017–2018 survey.

Callie is our app, and it appears near the end of this article. The calorie table is our own synthesis of published sources, and every source was checked on October 23, 2026. Sources are listed at the end.

## The 30-second answer

Gulf dishes have calorie ranges, not single numbers, and the range is usually set by fat and rice. A chicken shawarma wrap is about **370 to 615 kcal**, a 400 g plate of chicken machboos about **430 to 940 kcal**, a cup of karak about **70 to 200 kcal**, five luqaimat about **300 to 380 kcal** and a 200 g grilled hammour fillet about **236 kcal** before any butter. The table below covers 17 dishes. If you change one habit, log the ghee, oil and syrup as separate items, because that's where published figures part ways.

This article is general information based on published food composition data and our own calculations. It isn't medical advice and doesn't replace your doctor or a registered dietitian. If you have diabetes, kidney disease, a history of disordered eating or are pregnant, plan any change to how you eat with your care team.

## Calories in Emirati and Gulf dishes

Most ranges combine 2 to 4 published values for the dish or its closest analogue. Where we found none, we calculated one from USDA ingredient data and label it "our calc". Confidence reflects how well the sources agree and how close they are to the Gulf dish.

| Dish | Typical portion | Calories | Protein | Sources | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken shawarma wrap | 1 wrap, 160–230 g | 370–615 kcal | 22–42 g | Spinneys label; USDA gyro sandwich; our calc | Medium |
| Chicken machboos | 1 plate, 400 g | 430–940 kcal | 20–53 g | Saudi ESHA study (kabsa); myfood24 GCC mapping; our calc | Low |
| Lamb mandi | 1 plate, 450 g | 470–1,110 kcal | 24–55 g | Saudi ESHA study; our calc | Low |
| Harees | 1 bowl, 300 g | 300–460 kcal | 10–21 g | UAEU lab analysis (protein); Saudi ESHA study (jareesh); our calc | Medium |
| Thareed | 1 bowl, 400 g | 300–430 kcal | 18–26 g | Saudi ESHA study; our calc | Medium |
| Luqaimat with syrup | 5 pieces, 75 g, plus 10–20 g syrup | 300–380 kcal | 3–4 g | UAEU lab analysis (fat); USDA doughnut holes; our calc | Medium |
| Balaleet with omelette | 1 plate, 120–160 g | 385–570 kcal | 13–16 g | Our calc only | Low |
| Karak chai | 1 cup, 200 ml | 70–200 kcal | 3–6 g | Gulf News dietitian figure; our calc (evaporated vs condensed milk) | Medium |
| Gahwa with 3 dates | 3 dates + 3 small cups | 60–200 kcal | 1–2 g | USDA Deglet Noor and Medjool; USDA brewed coffee | High |
| Hummus | 100 g, about 6 tbsp | 177–247 kcal | 5–8 g | USDA home and commercial; USDA FNDDS; Spinneys label | High |
| Falafel | 5 pieces, 85 g | 283–437 kcal | 7–11 g | USDA home-prepared; USDA FNDDS | Medium |
| Manakish (za'atar or cheese) | 1 piece, 120–160 g | 425–555 kcal | 10–22 g | Our calc only | Low |
| Fattoush or tabbouleh | 1 side bowl, 150 g | 190–230 kcal | 2–4 g | USDA FNDDS tabbouleh; our calc | Medium |
| Kunafa | 1 piece, 100 g | 325–440 kcal | 7–9 g | USDA baklava (analogue); our calc | Low |
| Umm Ali | 1 bowl, 200 g | 340–490 kcal | 8–9 g | Our calc only | Low |
| Samboosa (fried) | 3 small, 75–105 g | 230–330 kcal | 4–5 g | USDA FNDDS samosa | Medium |
| Grilled hammour | 1 fillet, 200 g | 236–355 kcal | 50 g | USDA grouper, cooked dry heat; plus 1 tbsp oil | High |

Shawarma, karak, machboos and dates each have their own post with the full breakdown: [shawarma calories](/blog/shawarma-calories), [karak chai calories](/blog/karak-chai-calories), [machboos calories](/blog/machboos-calories) and [dates for iftar](/blog/dates-calories-iftar).

### How we built these ranges

This table is our original work. No single public database gives Gulf dishes at Gulf portions, so we put the available numbers side by side and kept the spread instead of averaging it away.

We used four kinds of source. First, UAE retail labels: a Spinneys-listed cooked chicken shawarma is 166.79 kcal and 26.59 g protein per 100 g, and Spinneysfood hummus is 247 kcal per 100 g. Second, USDA FoodData Central for analogous foods. Third, Gulf research: a 2025 Frontiers in Nutrition study of 25 Saudi dishes and a 2011 UAE University lab analysis of 10 Emirati dishes. Fourth, our own recipe calculations from USDA ingredients, always labelled.

Search these dishes online and you'll find sites with thousands of auto-generated dish pages. Their numbers often differ by hundreds of calories, usually because the recipe and portion aren't stated.

## Why the numbers disagree

Published values for the same Gulf dish can differ by a factor of two, and nearly all of that gap comes from five things: fat, rice, meat cut, sugar and method.

### Ghee and oil

Fat carries about 9 kcal per gram, so a tablespoon of ghee (12.8 g) adds about 112 kcal and a tablespoon of oil (13.6 g) about 120. The myfood24 Arabic database mapped its kabsa recipe at 63% boiled basmati rice, 19% grilled lamb chops and 8% sunflower oil by weight. Using USDA values, that comes to about 235 kcal per 100 g. A Saudi software analysis of three chicken kabsa recipes found 108 kcal per 100 g. The oil explains most of the difference. More on this in [hidden calories in oil, butter and sauces](/blog/hidden-calories-oil-butter-sauces).

### Rice portion

Cooked white rice is 130 kcal per 100 g in USDA data. A restaurant machboos or mandi platter can put 250 to 350 g of rice in front of one person, which is 325 to 455 kcal before any meat or fat. It's the heaviest part of the plate.

### Meat cut and skin

Roasted chicken breast meat is 165 kcal per 100 g, thigh meat 179 and leg with skin 184. Lamb is a bigger swing: lean shoulder is 204 kcal per 100 g, shoulder with its fat 276, and a broiled loin chop with fat 316. Mandi is often made with fatty, slow-cooked lamb, which pushes it toward the high end.

### Sugar syrup and condensed milk

Sweetened condensed milk is 321 kcal per 100 g; evaporated milk is 134. That one swap roughly doubles a cup of karak. In our kunafa calculation, the sugar syrup is about a fifth of the calories.

### Recipe software versus a lab

The Saudi study used ESHA recipe software and says its values don't account for cooking losses. The UAE University study measured cooked dishes in a lab. Both are valid, but they answer different questions, so we show both.

## Gulf dishes, one by one

### Rice platters: machboos and mandi

Rice platters have the widest ranges because the fat is cooked into the rice. The Saudi ESHA study put mandi at 104.27 kcal per 100 g, with a standard deviation of 27.19 across its three recipes, so even its own recipes ranged from about 77 to 131. For a 450 g plate that's about 470 kcal. Our calculation with 350 g rice, 200 g fatty lamb shoulder and 12 g ghee reaches about 1,110. Most restaurant plates sit somewhere between.

### Wheat dishes: harees and thareed

Harees is mostly wheat, water and a little meat, so the ghee on top decides its calories. A UAE University lab analysis found chicken harees had the lowest protein of the 10 dishes it tested, at 3.33 g per 100 g. Our USDA calculation for a 300 g bowl is about 300 kcal plain and about 460 kcal with an extra tablespoon of ghee. Thareed, bread soaked in meat and vegetable stew, came out at 99.47 kcal per 100 g in the Saudi study, about 400 kcal for a 400 g bowl.

### Breakfast: balaleet and manakish

Balaleet is sweet vermicelli with an omelette on top. We found no published lab or label value, so our 385 to 570 kcal comes only from a recipe calculation. A za'atar manakish is mostly dough plus olive oil. Our calculation puts a 100 g dough base with 15 g of oil at about 425 kcal, and a larger one at about 555.

### Street food: shawarma, falafel and samboosa

The meat in a chicken shawarma is lean, but the bread and toum aren't. USDA's gyro sandwich is 184 kcal per 100 g, or 368 kcal for its 200 g reference sandwich. USDA lists home-prepared falafel at 333 kcal per 100 g, while its survey falafel entry is 514. USDA's samosa is 310 kcal per 100 g, so three small 25 g pieces are about 230 kcal.

### Mezze: hummus, fattoush and tabbouleh

Hummus is the best-documented dish here. USDA lists home-prepared hummus at 177 kcal per 100 g and commercial at 237, its survey entry at 243, and the Spinneysfood label at 247. A swirl of olive oil on top adds about 119 kcal per tablespoon. USDA's tabbouleh is 127 kcal per 100 g, or 190 kcal for 150 g. Our fattoush calculation with 20 g of fried bread and 12 g of olive oil comes to about 230 kcal.

### Sweets and drinks

Luqaimat are fried dough, and the UAE University study found legemat had the highest fat of the 10 dishes it tested, at 15.47 g per 100 g. We used USDA's doughnut holes, at 426 kcal per 100 g, as the upper analogue, and honey's 304 kcal per 100 g as a stand-in for the syrup, since USDA has no date syrup entry. For dates, USDA lists a Medjool at 24 g and 66 kcal and a Deglet Noor at 7.1 g and 20 kcal. USDA has no entry for Gulf varieties such as Khalas and Sukkari; our [dates for iftar](/blog/dates-calories-iftar) post covers them.

### Fish: grilled hammour

Grilled hammour is the easiest Gulf dish to log: USDA's cooked grouper is 118 kcal and 24.84 g protein per 100 g, so a 200 g fillet is about 236 kcal and 50 g of protein. A tablespoon of oil or butter in the pan adds 100 to 120 kcal.

## Why AI photo apps and Western databases struggle with Gulf food

Gulf food is thinly represented in both the image datasets that train photo apps and the nutrient databases they look numbers up in.

On the image side, a 2022 study by researchers at Istanbul Technical University and Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar noted that "food recognition with respect to Middle Eastern cuisines has remained unexplored" ([Aktı, Qaraqe and Ekenel, arXiv 2022](https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09432)). Its model reached 94% on 23 classes, but only after merging look-alike dishes: baklava with kunafa, and tabbouleh with fattoush. A 2025 American University of Beirut thesis trained on 7,067 real images plus 2,657 synthetic ones across 174 Lebanese and regional dishes. It reached 78.66% accuracy on a held-out test set and 61.3% on 225 real-life wearable-camera photos, with a portion error of 108.3 g ([Hariri, AUB 2025](https://scholarworks.aub.edu.lb/items/b4a5f886-4834-48a3-bdf1-31aeedde9ce3/full)).

On the database side, the authors of the myfood24 Arabic database wrote that "currently available food composition data for Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC) is limited" ([Bawajeeh et al., 2021](https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/175374/)). Of its 2,016 items, 79% (1,585) were generic UK entries, 13% (271) came from Saudi and Kuwaiti pack labels, and only 8% (160) came from local food tables and research. We cover the wider pattern in [why AI calorie apps underestimate](/blog/why-ai-calorie-apps-underestimate).

## How to log a shared platter

To log a shared platter, estimate your own plate rather than the tray: count what you put in front of you, then add a share of the fat.

1. **Serve yourself onto a plate first.** Eating from a shared tray makes any estimate a guess.
2. **Log rice and meat separately.** "1.5 cups rice, 2 chicken pieces with skin" is more useful than "machboos". A cup of cooked rice is about 158 g and 205 kcal.
3. **Add the fat as its own line.** If the rice glistens or there's ghee on top, add one or two teaspoons. That's 40 to 80 kcal you'd otherwise miss.
4. **Count the extras.** Daqoos, salad, bread, laban and the dates and gahwa afterwards all count.
5. **Save repeat dishes.** If your family makes the same machboos every Friday, enter it once with real amounts and re-log it after that.

For Ramadan-specific advice, see our [Ramadan calorie tracking guide](/blog/ramadan-calorie-tracking-guide).

## Obesity and calorie labelling in the UAE

Adult obesity in the UAE is falling but still high. The Ministry of Health and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Survey 2024–2025, released in January 2026, found 22.4% of adults living with obesity, and 16.1% of children aged 6 to 17 ([Gulf News, January 6, 2026](https://gulfnews.com/uae/health/uae-residents-smoke-less-embrace-more-active-lifestyles-mohap-national-health-survey-1.500399806)). MoHAP had put adult obesity at 27.8% in its 2017–2018 survey ([Gulf News, March 3, 2022](https://gulfnews.com/uae/mohap-sharpens-focus-on-nutrition-in-uae-ahead-of-world-obesity-day-1.86157499)). WHO's modelled, age-standardised estimate is higher, at 31.6% of adults in 2024 ([WHO Global Health Observatory](https://ghoapi.azureedge.net/api/NCD_BMI_30A?$filter=SpatialDim%20eq%20'ARE')).

Menu calorie labelling is patchy. Dubai Municipality planned to make it mandatory in 2019, then deferred it. "Displaying calories in menus will be optional for next two years," Khalid Mohammad Sherif Al Awadhi of Dubai Municipality told [Gulf News in July 2019](https://gulfnews.com/uae/calorie-display-in-dubai-menus-delayed-for-two-years-1.65352261). We found no later source confirming a mandate. In Abu Dhabi, a study of 5,002 residents found menu calorie labels cut orders by an average of 114 kcal per meal, and 94% backed them ([Khaleej Times, July 10, 2026](https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/new-abu-dhabi-study-calorie-labels-help-cut-meal-orders-114-calories)).

## What UAE health authorities say

UAE health bodies don't publish calorie values for traditional dishes, but they give plain guidance on heavy ones.

The Dubai Health Authority's Ramadan eating guide says: "There are many meals or dishes prepared during Ramadan with high calories, so they should be eaten in moderation to avoid any complications that may occurs." It also advises: "Reduce eating heavy and fatty meals because they contain high amounts of calories and fat, which may cause weight gain." ([DHA, 2022](https://www.dha.gov.ae/uploads/022022/Balanced%20healthy%20eating%20habits%20during%20Ramadan_En2022250368.pdf))

When the Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre trained workers at 600 food outlets on menu nutrition labels in 2022, Dr Mariam Al Wahedi, its manager of community health, said "being able to identify the number of calories in meals we eat is essential to our health and necessary to sustain a healthy balanced diet and weight" ([Gulf News, May 17, 2022](https://gulfnews.com/uae/abu-dhabi-trains-hotel-restaurant-workers-about-nutritional-information-on-menus-1.87736107)).

On karak, Aster Hospital dietitian Janani Satchithanantham told Gulf News in 2020: "Consuming these empty calories can lead to unintended weight gain and lead to other lifestyle concerns" ([Gulf News, January 14, 2020](https://gulfnews.com/uae/the-bitter-truth-about-your-sweet-karak-tea-in-uae-1.68663205)).

## How Callie handles Gulf food

Callie is our app. It's built for mixed dishes a photo can't fully read, which describes most of the Gulf table.

- **Arabic interface.** The app is in Arabic with a full right-to-left layout, and also in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese. See [the best calorie tracker in Arabic](/blog/best-calorie-tracker-app-in-arabic) for how other apps compare.
- **Photo, voice or text, with a review screen.** Photo scans are never logged automatically. You see each item, such as rice, chicken and daqoos, with its portion and calories, and can add the ghee or cut the rice before saving. We haven't published a test of Arabic voice accuracy.
- **Menu scanner.** Scan a restaurant menu to get estimates for its dishes. It's paid after the trial.
- **AI coach in any language.** Ask in Arabic or English how to fit a Friday machboos into your week.
- **Price.** 3 free AI logs to try it, then AED 99.99 a year in the UAE. At the dirham's fixed rate of 3.6725 to the dollar, that's about $27, below the US price of $34.99.

What Callie doesn't do: it has no offline mode yet, so with no signal you take photos and log them later. It doesn't track micronutrients. It has no Gulf-specific food database, and it doesn't publish an accuracy figure for Gulf dishes.

## When another app is the better choice

**Pick FatSecret** if you want a large database you can search for Gulf brands. Its UAE App Store listing says it is "customised for each country's foods and brands", supports 23 languages including Arabic, and is free to download, with paid plans.

**Pick Mirān (مِران)** if you mostly eat Saudi dishes and want workouts in the same app. Its listing says its meal scanner handles Saudi food.

**Pick Cronometer** if you need micronutrients such as iron, B12 and calcium. Callie doesn't track them, and Cronometer's free tier covers 84 nutrients.

**Pick Callie** if you want an Arabic right-to-left app that shows you the estimate before saving it, so you can fix the ghee and rice on a mixed plate. Not sure? Our [which calorie tracker guide](/which-calorie-tracker) gives one pick per type of user.

## Sources

1. Spinneys UAE, "Freshly Foods Frozen Chicken Shawarma 350G" nutrition panel, 166.79 kcal and 26.59 g protein per 100 g (accessed October 23, 2026). https://www.spinneys.com/en-ae/catalogue/freshly-foods-chicken-shawarma-350g_6724/
2. Spinneys UAE, "Spinneysfood Hummus 200g" nutrition panel, 247 kcal per 100 g (accessed October 23, 2026). https://www.spinneys.com/en-ae/catalogue/sf-hummus-200g_13040/
3. USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy (2018): hummus home-prepared (172454) and commercial (174289); falafel home-prepared (172455); rice, white, long-grain, cooked (168878); chicken breast (171477), thigh (172388) and leg with skin (173617), roasted; lamb shoulder lean (172499) and lean and fat (174325); lamb loin, broiled (172489); grouper, cooked, dry heat (171963); dates, Medjool (168191) and Deglet Noor (171726); sweetened condensed milk (171275); evaporated milk (171276); butter oil (173412); sunflower oil (171017); olive oil (171413); honey (169640); coffee, brewed (171890). Read from the USDA SR Legacy CSV download on October 23, 2026. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/download-datasets
4. USDA FoodData Central, FNDDS survey foods (October 2024): gyro sandwich (2706962); hummus, plain (2707402); falafel (2707408); tabbouleh (2709131); samosa (2708730); baklava (2708044); doughnut holes (2708069). https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/download-datasets
5. Basaqr R, Bakr E-S, Ibrahim Y, Bujan Y, Alqasimi K, Aljaadi A (2025). "Comprehensive nutritional compositions of traditional dishes from five Saudi regions using Elizabeth Stewart Hands and Associates Food Processor software." Frontiers in Nutrition 12. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2025.1658078/full
6. Habib HM, Ali HI, Ibrahim WH, Afifi HS (2011). "Nutritional value of 10 traditional dishes of the United Arab Emirates." Ecology of Food and Nutrition 50(6):526–538. https://research.uaeu.ac.ae/en/publications/nutritional-value-of-10-traditional-dishes-of-the-united-arab-emi
7. Bawajeeh AO, Kalendar S, Scarpa G, et al. (2021). "Development of an Arabic Food Composition Database for use in an Arabic online dietary assessment tool (myfood24)." Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 102:104047. https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/175374/
8. Aktı Ş, Qaraqe M, Ekenel HK (2022). "A Mobile Food Recognition System for Dietary Assessment." arXiv:2204.09432. https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09432
9. Hariri S (2025). "Estimating Calories and Macronutrients from Lebanese Food Images Using Deep Learning–Based Classification and Single-View Portion Size Estimation." MS thesis, American University of Beirut. https://scholarworks.aub.edu.lb/items/b4a5f886-4834-48a3-bdf1-31aeedde9ce3/full
10. Gulf News (January 6, 2026). "UAE residents smoke less, embrace more active lifestyles: MoHAP National Health survey." https://gulfnews.com/uae/health/uae-residents-smoke-less-embrace-more-active-lifestyles-mohap-national-health-survey-1.500399806
11. Gulf News (March 3, 2022). "MoHAP sharpens focus on nutrition in UAE ahead of World Obesity Day." https://gulfnews.com/uae/mohap-sharpens-focus-on-nutrition-in-uae-ahead-of-world-obesity-day-1.86157499
12. World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory, indicator NCD_BMI_30A, "Obesity among adults, BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 (age-standardized estimate) (%)," United Arab Emirates, 2024 (accessed October 23, 2026). https://ghoapi.azureedge.net/api/NCD_BMI_30A?$filter=SpatialDim%20eq%20'ARE'
13. Gulf News (July 21, 2019). "Calorie display in Dubai menus delayed for two years." https://gulfnews.com/uae/calorie-display-in-dubai-menus-delayed-for-two-years-1.65352261
14. Khaleej Times (July 10, 2026). "Does looking at calories make you eat less? Here's what Abu Dhabi study found." https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/new-abu-dhabi-study-calorie-labels-help-cut-meal-orders-114-calories
15. Gulf News (May 17, 2022). "Abu Dhabi trains hotel, restaurant workers about nutritional information on menus." https://gulfnews.com/uae/abu-dhabi-trains-hotel-restaurant-workers-about-nutritional-information-on-menus-1.87736107
16. Dubai Health Authority (2022). "Balanced healthy eating habits during Ramadan." https://www.dha.gov.ae/uploads/022022/Balanced%20healthy%20eating%20habits%20during%20Ramadan_En2022250368.pdf
17. Gulf News (January 14, 2020). "The bitter truth about your sweet karak tea in UAE." https://gulfnews.com/uae/the-bitter-truth-about-your-sweet-karak-tea-in-uae-1.68663205
18. The National (November 22, 2024). The UAE dirham has been pegged at 3.6725 to the US dollar since 1997. https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/2024/11/22/uae-dirham-dollar-peg
19. FatSecret, Mirān and Cronometer, UAE App Store listings via the iTunes Lookup API (accessed October 23, 2026). https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=347184248&country=ae, https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=1396961211&country=ae, https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=1145935738&country=ae

## Frequently asked questions

**Q: How many calories are in a chicken shawarma wrap in the UAE?**
A: Most chicken shawarma wraps land between about 370 and 615 kcal. The chicken itself is lean: a Spinneys-listed cooked chicken shawarma is 167 kcal per 100 g. The rest comes from the Arabic bread and the garlic sauce, which is mostly oil. Ask for less toum and you can save well over 100 kcal.

**Q: How many calories are in machboos?**
A: A 400 g plate of chicken machboos is about 430 to 940 kcal depending on the recipe. A 2025 Saudi analysis put chicken kabsa, its close cousin, at 108 kcal per 100 g. A GCC food database recipe with 8% sunflower oil works out at about 235 kcal per 100 g. Ghee, rice portion and chicken skin explain the gap.

**Q: How many calories are in a cup of karak chai?**
A: A typical 200 ml cup of karak is about 70 to 200 kcal. An Aster Hospital dietitian quoted by Gulf News in 2020 put one cup at 122 kcal and said it varies between 70 and 133 kcal depending on milk and sugar. Cafés that add sweetened condensed milk can push a cup toward 200 kcal.

**Q: Are luqaimat high in calories?**
A: Yes, for their size. Five luqaimat (about 75 g) with syrup come to roughly 300 to 380 kcal by our calculation. A UAE University lab analysis found legemat had the highest fat of 10 traditional dishes it tested, at 15.47 g per 100 g.

**Q: Can AI calorie apps recognise Emirati food?**
A: Partly. Research on Middle Eastern food recognition is recent and small. One 2022 study described the field as having 'remained unexplored' and reached 94% accuracy on 23 classes. A 2025 American University of Beirut thesis reached 78.66% on 174 Lebanese and regional dishes, and 61.3% on real-life wearable-camera photos. Check every estimate before you save it.

**Q: Is Callie available in Arabic?**
A: Yes. Callie's app interface is in Arabic with a full right-to-left layout, and its AI coach replies in any language you write in. It costs AED 99.99 a year in the UAE after 3 free trial logs. It has no offline mode yet.