A medium green pear (178 grams) contains about 101 calories. Most of those calories come from natural sugars, with virtually no fat or protein. That makes pears one of the lower-calorie fruits you can grab as a snack, sitting below bananas and mangoes but slightly above apples.
Calories by Size and Serving
Pear sizes vary more than you might expect. A “medium” pear in commercial terms weighs roughly 178 grams, which works out to about two or three pears per pound. Since calorie density for raw pears runs close to 57 calories per 100 grams, you can estimate based on the actual weight of the fruit in front of you:
- Small pear (148 g): roughly 84 calories
- Medium pear (178 g): 101 calories
- Large pear (230 g): roughly 131 calories
- One cup, sliced (140 g): roughly 80 calories
Green Anjou pears, the variety most people picture when they think “green pear,” fall right in line with these numbers. Bartlett and Bosc pears are nutritionally similar, so switching varieties won’t meaningfully change your calorie count.
What Those Calories Are Made Of
Pears are almost entirely carbohydrates. A cup of sliced green Anjou pear contains about 13.6 grams of sugar. The breakdown is telling: roughly 8.5 grams of fructose, 4.7 grams of glucose, and a tiny 0.5 grams of sucrose. That heavy lean toward fructose is typical of pears and gives them their distinctly mild, honey-like sweetness compared to fruits that carry more sucrose.
Fat and protein are negligible, each contributing less than a gram per medium fruit. This isn’t a fruit you eat for protein, but the carbohydrate profile is more interesting than the raw sugar number suggests, because of the fiber.
Fiber Content and the Skin
A medium pear delivers about 6 grams of dietary fiber, covering roughly 21% of the recommended daily value. That’s a standout number among common fruits. An apple of similar size provides around 4.4 grams, and a banana about 3.1 grams.
The skin holds most of that fiber, so peeling a pear before eating it strips away a significant portion of its nutritional value. Eating the skin also means you get more of the plant compounds concentrated in the outer layers. If you find the skin unappealing on a firm Anjou, letting it ripen until it gives slightly to pressure near the stem makes the texture more pleasant.
Blood Sugar Impact
Despite containing a fair amount of natural sugar, pears have a low glycemic index, falling between 20 and 49. That high fiber content slows down sugar absorption, which means eating a pear produces a more gradual rise in blood sugar compared to fruits like watermelon or pineapple. For people watching their blood sugar, pears are one of the friendlier fruit choices available.
How Pears Compare to Other Fruits
For a quick calorie comparison using medium-sized servings:
- Green pear: 101 calories, 6 g fiber
- Apple: 95 calories, 4.4 g fiber
- Banana: 105 calories, 3.1 g fiber
- Orange: 62 calories, 3.1 g fiber
- Peach: 59 calories, 2.3 g fiber
Pears sit in the same calorie neighborhood as apples and bananas but win on fiber by a comfortable margin. If you’re choosing between fruits for satiety on fewer calories, the fiber density in pears makes them especially filling relative to their calorie cost.
Broader Nutritional Benefits
Beyond calories and fiber, pears contribute modest amounts of vitamin C and potassium. They’re not a powerhouse for any single vitamin the way oranges are for vitamin C, but they carry a range of plant compounds with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Research has linked regular pear consumption to support for both digestive and respiratory health, likely driven by those bioactive compounds rather than any single nutrient.
One detail worth knowing: younger, less ripe pears contain higher levels of these protective compounds and lower sugar content than fully mature fruit. A firmer pear isn’t just crunchier. It’s a slightly different nutritional package, with more antioxidants and fewer sugars than one that’s soft and fully ripe.