Banana calories, by actual size
A medium banana is 105 calories. But USDA grades bananas by length and its largest is 68% heavier than its smallest — 136 g against 81 g — so logging "one banana" is logging a range from 72 to 121 calories and hoping.
Per 100 g, raw
Every USDA banana size
| Serving | Weight | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 extra small (less than 6" long) | 81 g | 72 | 0.9 g | 18.5 g | 0.3 g |
| 1 small (6" to 6-7/8" long) | 101 g | 90 | 1.1 g | 23.1 g | 0.3 g |
| 1 medium (7" to 7-7/8" long) | 118 g | 105 | 1.3 g | 27.0 g | 0.4 g |
| 1 NLEA serving | 126 g | 112 | 1.4 g | 28.8 g | 0.4 g |
| 1 large (8" to 8-7/8" long) | 136 g | 121 | 1.5 g | 31.1 g | 0.4 g |
| 1 cup, sliced | 150 g | 134 | 1.6 g | 34.3 g | 0.5 g |
Peeled weight. A banana peel is roughly a third of what you carry home.
Ripeness changes the taste, not the calories
As a banana ripens its starch converts to sugar, which is why a speckled one tastes sweeter than a green one. The conversion moves carbohydrate between forms; it does not create or destroy energy. A green banana and a brown banana of the same weight carry effectively the same calories. What ripeness does change is glycemic response and how much resistant starch survives digestion — a real effect, and not one your food log needs to model.
The peel
Every figure here is peeled. If you put a whole banana on a kitchen scale you are weighing roughly a third packaging. A 170 g unpeeled banana is about 118 g of fruit — a USDA medium. Weigh after peeling, or use the size table above and stop weighing fruit.
Why the number feels high
Bananas get called calorie-dense for fruit, and per piece they are, because they are large. Per 100 g a banana is 89 calories — less dense than a avocado by a factor of nearly two, and in the same range as most fruit. It is portion size doing the work, not the fruit.
Source: USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy release 2018-04. Figures are per 100 g as published; serving weights are USDA’s own. Records used: Bananas, raw (FDC 173944).
Common questions
It depends on size. USDA lists 72 calories for extra small, 90 for small, 105 for medium and 121 for large.
A USDA medium banana is 118 g peeled, which at 89 calories per 100 g is about 105 calories.
No. Ripening converts starch into sugar, which changes the taste and the glycemic response but not the total energy.
Without. USDA figures are for the edible portion, and a peel is roughly a third of a whole banana’s weight.
Compare it with
| Food | Per 100 g | Protein | The page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | 52 kcal | 0.3 g | The least dense fruit here, and why variety hardly matters |
| Broccoli | 34 kcal | 2.8 g | The one food not worth weighing |
| Egg | 143 kcal | 12.6 g | Every size — a jumbo is 66% heavier than a small |
All twenty-four are on the food macros index.
Log it without doing this arithmetic
Scan the barcode or weigh it in grams and EatSleepRep does the conversion. The scanner is free forever, there are no ads, and every entry exports as CSV whenever you want it.