How Many Calories in a Melon? Honeydew, Cantaloupe and Galia
A cold slice on the hottest day of the year costs almost nothing: melon averages 24 calories per 100 g, so an 80 g slice is just 19. If you are wondering how many calories in a melon in total, even the flesh of half a fruit — about 400 g of it — stays under 100.
On this page
- Quick facts
- Honeydew, cantaloupe or galia?
- Slices, halves and 5 A Day
- How does melon compare?
- Is melon full of sugar?
- FAQ
Quick facts
Averaged across the varieties on UK shelves, melon flesh measures like this:
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 80 g slice | RI%* (per slice) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 24 kcal (100 kJ) | 19 kcal (80 kJ) | 1% |
| Protein | 0.5 g | 0.4 g | 1% |
| Carbohydrates | 5.5 g | 4.4 g | 2% |
| — of which sugars | 5.5 g | 4.4 g | 5% |
| Fat | 0.1 g | 0.1 g | <1% |
| Fibre | 1.3 g | 1.0 g | — |
| Salt | 0.04 g | 0.03 g | <1% |
*RI = reference intake for an average adult (2,000 kcal a day).
Verified nutrition data
Numbers on this page come from CoFID, the UK government’s Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset, and from manufacturer labels where a branded product is named. Last verified August 2026. How we verify our data →
Melon is essentially flavoured water with a soft sugar note — one of the most water-heavy fruits on the shelf. Nothing in that table needs managing; the whole slice costs less than a mouthful of most breakfast cereals.
Honeydew, cantaloupe or galia?
Variety shifts the number by a fifth or so, never by multiples. Cantaloupe, the orange-fleshed one, is the lightest at 19 kcal per 100 g of flesh. Galia matches the 24 average. Honeydew measured "weighed whole" comes out at 17 per 100 g — that figure spreads the calories across rind and seeds too, which is why it looks lower; its flesh alone sits close to the 24 average.
The practical read: buy whichever smells best. A ±20% swing on a 19-calorie slice is a difference of about 4 calories, which no sensible food diary will ever feel.
Slices, halves and 5 A Day
An 80 g slice is 19 calories, and that same 80 g is exactly what the NHS counts as one of your 5 A Day. One good wedge of melon ticks a full fruit portion for 19 calories — the cheapest of your five by a distance.
Go bigger and the sums stay friendly. Half a melon's flesh — around 400 g, the sort of portion you scoop with a spoon straight from the shell — is 96 calories. You would struggle to spend 100 calories on melon without genuinely trying, which makes it one of the rare foods where "I ate half of one" is a boast, not a confession.
How does melon compare?
| Fruit | Portion | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Melon | 80 g slice | 19 |
| Strawberries | 80 g | 24 |
| Pineapple | 80 g | 36 |
| Grapes | 80 g | 52 |
| Apple | 1 medium | 66 |
Portion for portion, melon is the lightest thing in the fruit bowl — under even strawberries, and around a third of the cost of grapes for the same weight. For weight loss it is the best-value fruit on this table; for something you can eat one-handed at a desk, an apple still earns its place at 66.
It undercuts kiwi and most other lunchbox fruit too. If volume eating is your style — a big bowl of something cold — melon delivers the most spoonfuls per calorie.
Is melon full of sugar?
Melon tastes sweet enough that people assume it is a sugar bomb. The numbers disagree: 5.5 g per 100 g, so a slice carries 4.4 g — a fraction of what a fizzy drink delivers, wrapped in water and fibre that slow it down.
Whole fruit also is not the sugar the guidance warns about. The NHS free-sugars advice targets added and released sugars, not the sugars sitting inside intact fruit — a distinction the World Health Organization makes as well. Eat the slice; question the juice.
FAQ
How many calories in honeydew melon?
Measured whole — rind and all in the weight — honeydew comes out at 17 kcal per 100 g in CoFID, while its flesh alone sits near the 24 average for melon. Either way, a generous wedge stays around 20 calories, making honeydew as light as fruit gets.
How many calories in cantaloupe melon?
19 kcal per 100 g of flesh — the lightest of the common varieties. An 80 g slice is about 15 calories. The deeper orange colour signals carotenoids, not extra sugar, so cantaloupe manages to taste rich while costing least.
How many calories in half a melon?
About 96 calories for the flesh of half a typical melon, roughly 400 g of it. That is an enormous, spoon-from-the-shell portion for less than the calories in a slice of buttered toast — melon is very hard to overeat in calorie terms.
Is melon good for weight loss?
Few foods suit it better: 24 kcal per 100 g, mostly water, with enough sweetness to stand in for dessert. A huge bowl costs under 100 calories, so it fills the "something sweet and cold" slot that usually goes to ice cream at several times the cost.
How much sugar is in melon?
5.5 g per 100 g — about 4.4 g in an 80 g slice, all of it natural sugar within the whole fruit. NHS free-sugar limits target added sugars and juices rather than intact fruit, so a slice of melon is not the place your sugar budget goes wrong.
Watermelon vs melon: which has fewer calories?
They are close neighbours — watermelon is a different fruit but shares the same trick of being overwhelmingly water, so both sit at the very light end of the fruit bowl. At 24 kcal per 100 g for melon, neither choice will trouble a food diary; pick by taste.
How many carbs are in melon?
5.5 g per 100 g, effectively all of it sugars, with 1.3 g of fibre alongside. An 80 g slice holds 4.4 g of carbohydrate — low enough that melon features even in fairly carb-cautious eating patterns as the fruit of choice.
Does melon count towards 5 A Day?
Yes — 80 g of melon counts as one portion under the NHS 5 A Day rules, and that slice costs only 19 calories. A hefty 160 g bowl counts once (each food can only count one portion per day) but still comes in under 40 calories.
Similar foods
- Raspberries — 20 kcal per 80 g portion
- Strawberries — 24 kcal per 80 g handful
- Peach — 45 kcal a medium fruit
- Orange — 43 kcal per medium fruit
- Blueberries — 32 kcal per 80 g handful
- Plum — 23 kcal per plum
Weigh less of the maths, not the melon
Point the camera at the fruit bowl and BodyPal logs your slice in UK portions — 5-a-day-sized servings, sugar in grams and all — before the melon even warms up.
