One cup of raw blueberries (about 148 grams) contains roughly 84 calories. That makes them a relatively low-calorie fruit, though they’re actually the highest-calorie berry you’ll commonly find at the grocery store. Here’s what that number looks like in context, plus how it changes depending on the form you buy.
Calories by Serving Size
Most nutrition labels and dietary guidelines use one cup as the standard serving for blueberries. At 84 calories per cup, a single blueberry works out to less than 1 calorie. A small handful of about 50 berries is roughly 28 calories. Per 100 grams, blueberries come in at about 57 calories.
Nearly all of those calories come from carbohydrates. One cup has about 21 grams of total carbs, with 14.7 grams from natural sugars (a mix of glucose and fructose) and 3.5 grams from dietary fiber. That fiber brings the net carb count down to around 17.5 grams per cup. Blueberries have almost no fat or protein to speak of.
Fresh, Frozen, and Dried Are Not the Same
Fresh and frozen blueberries are nutritionally interchangeable. Both clock in at about 80 calories and 15 grams of sugar per cup. Freezing doesn’t meaningfully change the calorie count or nutrient profile, so buy whichever is more convenient or affordable.
Dried blueberries are a completely different story. One cup of dried blueberries contains over 500 calories and 100 grams of sugar. That’s more than six times the calories of the same volume of fresh berries. The dehydration process concentrates the natural sugars into a much smaller package, and most commercial dried blueberries have added sugar or fruit juice on top of that. If you’re tracking calories, treat dried blueberries more like a dried fruit snack than a substitute for fresh.
How Blueberries Compare to Other Berries
Blueberries are the most calorie-dense common berry, largely because they contain more sugar. Here’s how a one-cup serving stacks up:
- Blueberries (148g): 84 calories, 14.7g sugar
- Raspberries (123g): 64 calories, 5.4g sugar
- Strawberries (152g): 49 calories, 7.4g sugar
Raspberries have less than half the sugar of blueberries and significantly more fiber, making them the lowest-impact choice if you’re watching carb intake. Strawberries fall in between. That said, 84 calories for a full cup of fruit is still quite low, and the nutritional differences between berries are small enough that picking the one you’ll actually eat matters more than optimizing for calories.
Blood Sugar Impact
Despite their sugar content, blueberries are classified as a low glycemic index food (55 or below on the 100-point scale). The fiber content slows digestion enough that the sugars enter your bloodstream gradually rather than in a spike. For most people, a cup of blueberries won’t cause a significant blood sugar surge.
What Else Is in That Cup
Beyond calories, one cup of raw blueberries delivers 25% of your daily recommended vitamin C, along with 29 micrograms of vitamin K and about half a milligram of manganese. The 4 grams of fiber covers roughly 14% of the daily target for most adults.
Blueberries are also unusually rich in anthocyanins, the pigments responsible for their deep blue color. Cultivated blueberries contain about 387 milligrams of anthocyanins per 100 grams, which works out to roughly 529 milligrams in a one-cup serving. Wild blueberries pack even more, around 705 milligrams per cup. These compounds function as antioxidants in the body, and they’re part of the reason blueberries consistently rank among the most nutrient-dense fruits.
Blueberries and Weight Management
A 12-week study of 54 adults found that replacing 50 grams of other carbohydrates with blueberries led to notable improvements in body composition. Men in the blueberry group lost 11 to 14% more weight than the control group, while women lost 1.4 to 3% more. The blueberry group also saw significant reductions in LDL cholesterol (14 to 18%), insulin resistance, and BMI compared to baseline.
The key detail: participants weren’t adding blueberries on top of their normal diet. They were swapping them in for other carbohydrate sources. At 84 calories per cup, blueberries are a lower-calorie, higher-fiber replacement for foods like bread, crackers, or sweetened snacks. The calorie savings add up over time, and the fiber helps you feel fuller.