If you are trying to lose weight or on a strict diet for health reasons, monitoring your caloric intake is important. The calorie count of a food represents its energy content, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. When trying to lose weight, you must try to burn more calories than you consume. In the case of processed foods, caloric content must be included on the package's nutrition label. Raw fruits and vegetables, however, are not required to meet this USDA requirement, making it more difficult to establish caloric content.
Step 1
Find a reputable source for caloric and nutrient information in foods. Many nutrition books contain calorie databases, and the USDA also maintains an online alphabetical nutrient database (see Resources).
Step 2
Search the calorie database for the fruits your regularly consume. The database may have several listings for a fruit, depending on how you consume it. For example, apples are listed both with and without skin and bananas are listed in two serving sizes--1 banana or 1 cup of banana--in the USDA database.
Step 3
Compute the caloric content of the fruits you eat based on the calorie database. For example, if you have a banana for breakfast each day and always have a peach for lunch you will need to look up both fruits. A banana contains 105 calories, while a peach has 38. Add these figures together, and you'll see you eat 143 calories in fruit when you consume these foods.
Tips and Warnings
- If you travel frequently or prefer to count your daily calories throughout the day, you may find it more convenient to purchase a book containing a calorie database rather than an online reference.
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