How many calories are in a custard apple (sitaphal)?
A medium custard apple yields about 140 g of pulp, which is roughly 140 kcal. Sitaphal pulp is around 100 kcal per 100 g — close to banana and above most other fruit. Because it is eaten one whole fruit at a time rather than in measured slices, the portion is usually bigger than people assume.
Per portion
| Portion | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 g pulp | ~100 kcal | 1.7 g | 24 g | 0.6 g |
| 1 small (~150 g whole, ~85 g pulp) | ~85 kcal | 1.4 g | 20 g | 0.5 g |
| 1 medium (~250 g whole, ~140 g pulp) | ~140 kcal | 2.4 g | 34 g | 0.8 g |
| 1 large (~400 g whole, ~230 g pulp) | ~230 kcal | 4 g | 55 g | 1.4 g |
| 1 cup pulp (~240 g) | ~240 kcal | 4 g | 58 g | 1.4 g |
| Sitaphal ice cream, one scoop | ~150–220 kcal | 3 g | 22 g | 8 g |
What changes the number
Size, by a factor of three. Sitaphal runs from 120 g to over 500 g whole, so “one custard apple” is anything from 70 to 290 kcal. That is why published figures for a single fruit disagree so widely.
Which annona you actually have. Sitaphal or sharifa (Annona squamosa) is the common Indian one at roughly 100 kcal per 100 g. Cherimoya is lower, nearer 75 kcal, ramphal or bullock’s heart sits between them, and soursop is lower again at about 65 kcal. All of them get sold as custard apple somewhere.
What is made from it, since nothing is cooked. The fruit is always eaten raw, so preparation is not a variable in the usual sense — but sitaphal rabdi, basundi and milkshake are, and they are where the calories move:
- Sitaphal milkshake, one fruit with 200 ml whole milk and sugar: 300 to 400 kcal
- Sitaphal basundi or rabdi, one bowl: 300 to 450 kcal
Ripeness is not a lever. Softening converts starch already present into sugar; the energy is near enough identical in a firm fruit and a collapsing one.
Where it fits in a deficit
Each medium fruit brings 3 to 4 g of fibre and a lot of water, so it satisfies better than its 140 kcal suggests. What it does not do is work as a volume food — at 100 kcal per 100 g of pulp it sits well above the low end of the density ladder, and protein is negligible.
One fruit is a sensible portion. Two large ones are 460 kcal, which on an 1,800 kcal day is a quarter of it; a deficit calculator will show you what that leaves.
Why per-100-g figures mislead badly here
Custard apple has the worst edible-portion ratio of any common fruit. The thick scaled skin and the dozens of hard black seeds are 40 to 50 per cent of the whole weight, so a 250 g fruit gives around 140 g of pulp. Enter 250 g against a per-100-g figure and you overstate the fruit by about 110 kcal.
The error runs the other way too. Once the pulp is scooped out, 100 g of it is a surprisingly small amount — a scant half cup. Anyone estimating “about 100 g” by eye while working through a whole fruit is usually looking at 140 to 230 g. Weigh the fruit, halve it, and treat that as the pulp. It is the same correction that chikoo and litchis need, and nothing about a calorie deficit works without it.
Figures are typical values and vary by variety, size and preparation. General information, not medical advice.