04/10/2026
The top 10 foods for protein: meat and fish, ranked per 100 g cooked.
Protein is not only about building muscle. Your body also uses it to maintain muscle and bone, repair tissue after training, and make enzymes and hormones.
Three things the numbers show:
1. The top six sit within 2 g of each other. Veal leads chicken breast by less than a gram.
2. Your pack shows the raw weight. Chicken breast reads 23 g raw and 30 g cooked, because cooking removes water.
3. Protein is only part of the story. Cod has the most protein per calorie, duck the most iron, beef the most zinc, and 100 g of tuna covers the daily reference for selenium.
Good to know: figures vary with country, variety, brand and cooking method. Percentages refer to EU daily reference intakes. This is general information, not medical or dietary advice.
Sources
1. Anses. Ciqual French food composition table, 2025.
2. USDA Agricultural Research Service. National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 28.
3. THL. Fineli food composition database.
4. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex XIII.
Save this for your next shop. Which one surprised you?
