Dried fruit and apple calories

Dried fruit looks small in the palm of your hand, but its calories show why it pays to watch your portion size. While 100 g of fresh apple gives 42 kcal, 100 g of dried apples already gives 243 kcal.

That doesn’t make dried fruit a bad food. It’s more a question of timing, amount, and whether you eat it around your workout, at breakfast, or just nibble away at it unnoticed in front of the TV.

Why is dried fruit so rich in energy?

Author: Janar Rückenberg

The truth is simple: when fruit is dried, it loses a large share of its water. The sugars, minerals and some of the vitamins remain, but now they are packed into a smaller, lighter amount. That is why the carbohydrate content of dried fruit can be roughly 5075%.

The same logic explains the calories. A hundred-gram portion gives 200300 kilocalories, depending on the fruit. A fresh apple, plum or apricot fills you up more because it contains a lot of water. The dried version is denser, sweeter, and easy to overeat.

On the plus side, you get carbohydrates and potassium. Dried fruit contains rather little protein and fat, but the minerals don’t evaporate along with the water. That’s why dried fruit works well in the mid-morning, as a snack for a longer day, or close to a workout.

The picture with vitamins is less impressive. Some of them survive the drying process quite well, but with long storage, usually over a year, the vitamin content of dried foods drops considerably.

Dried fruit before and after a workout

During a bulking phase, dried fruit can be very practical. It provides energy, fits in your bag, and works well in porridge or a homemade muesli. Instead of store-bought muesli, you can take oat flakes, add apricots, peaches, apples, dates, banana chips or plums, and mix exactly the blend you like.

Honestly, this is often more sensible than buying a ready-made mix. The same idea applies to mass gainers: sometimes it’s easier and clearer to make your own blend of maltodextrin and protein than to pay for a ready-made product. Muesli is a similar story.

Another good time is before and after a workout. Fruit contains plenty of carbohydrates, especially simple sugars, but the dietary fiber makes absorption steadier. If the workout is tough and your last meal was a while ago, a small portion of dried fruit can give you the boost you need.

It’s a completely different story for bodybuilders preparing for competitions. In the pre-contest period, dried fruit needs to be treated with caution, because it still contains a serious dose of simple carbohydrates. Most fruit contains fructose and glucose at 50:50.

Even when bulking, not everyone gets the green light. If your metabolism is slower or you want to keep your six-pack in the off-season, you need to keep an eye on how much you eat and when.

Apple calories: fresh and dried apple

Apple calories are a good example, because an apple seems everyday and innocent. The difference comes from water. Once the water is removed, the same amount of nutrients becomes a much smaller, denser mouthful.

E.g. 100 g of fresh apple contains:

• 42 kcal
• 0 g protein
• 10 g carbohydrates
• 0 g fat

By contrast, 100 g of dried apples contains:

• 243 kcal
• 0.9 g protein
• 65.9 g carbohydrates
• 0.3 g fat

So what actually happens? To get 100 g of dried apples, you have to dry several 100 g portions of fresh apples. The weight disappears because the water leaves. The nutrients and calories largely remain.

The same principle is familiar from protein. To get 30 g of protein, you have to eat nearly 200 g of quark. To get 30 g of protein from a supplement, you only need about 35 g of protein powder. The amount looks smaller, but the content is concentrated.

Dried fruit: what to look for when buying

To be fair, there are some downsides too. Fruit that is going to be dried is often treated with synthetic antioxidants to improve its appearance, for example to prevent browning. In highly sensitive people, these compounds can cause mild, transient health complaints.

It’s also worth remembering that when a food’s water content is below 15%, microbial activity is suppressed, but some of the microbes remain viable. Dried foods are not sterile. If they get damp, microbes start to multiply quickly.

In practice, this comes down to three things. Keep the package dry, close it properly after opening, and don’t eat dried fruit straight from a large bag. A small bowl helps you judge the portion better.

If you eat a lot of them in their natural, i.e. dry, form, the pieces can absorb water in the digestive tract and swell. The result can be bloating, pressure and pain. So it doesn’t pay to overdo it, even when the food is natural and tastes good.

You can find a comparison of the calories and nutrients in dried fruit here: see the comparison.

FAQ: dried fruit

Is dried fruit suitable while on a diet?

Yes, but the portion needs to be small. On a diet, fresh fruit is often the easier choice, because it contains more water, is more voluminous and keeps you fuller.

Do the calories in an apple change when it’s dried?

The calories in an apple don’t appear out of thin air, but per 100 g the picture becomes much denser. A fresh apple contains more water, while a portion of dried apple of the same weight contains more carbohydrates and energy.

When is the best time to eat dried fruit?

In the morning, mixed into porridge or muesli, and before or after a workout. Late-night snacking for no particular reason is where the amount tends to creep up unnoticed.

“Mõnus maius kuivatatud puuvili” (A delicious treat: dried fruit) Author: Urmas Kokassaar, Mihkel Zilmer (Tervispluss)

Author: Janar Rückenberg

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