A puri looks small and harmless. Golden, puffed, cute. Each one absorbs 5 to 8 grams of oil during deep frying. Three puris cost more calories than four plain rotis. That innocent puff is wearing a calorie disguise. Puri is one of those foods that’s perfectly fine occasionally but becomes a calorie problem when it’s … Read more
Punjabi colony, Sunday lunch, somewhere in Delhi. The waiter slides a plate in front of you: two enormous bhature, glossy and golden, towering over a steel katori of chole simmering in tomato-onion gravy. A side of pickled onions, a wedge of lemon, two green chillies. You start eating. Twenty minutes later you are stuffed beyond … Read more
A butter naan from a restaurant is 320 to 380 calories. That is the same as eating 4 to 5 homemade rotis in one piece of bread. Two naans with paneer butter masala and you have crossed 1,200 calories before dessert arrives. Most people eat naan without thinking about the calorie count. Once you see … Read more
Sunday morning. Your mother is rolling small dough discs and dropping them into hot oil. Each puri puffs up like a balloon, browns evenly, and lands on a steel plate lined with newspaper. Aloo bhaji is bubbling on the next burner. You eat four. You feel virtuous because they were small. Then you read this … Read more
A paratha is a roti that went to finishing school. Same flour, same tawa, but stuffed with filling, cooked in oil, and somehow three times the calories. Two aloo parathas with butter for breakfast feels light. It is 500+ calories. And most people have no idea. Paratha is one of those foods that’s perfectly fine … Read more
If you Google ‘best roti for diabetes’ or ‘best roti for weight loss‘, jowar comes up in nearly every recommendation. Indian dieticians are switching diabetic patients to jowar roti by default. Maharashtrian and Karnataka households have eaten jowar bhakri as a staple for centuries. Why the sudden urban interest? The numbers explain it. One medium … Read more
Your nani told you ghee is healthy. She is not entirely wrong. Ghee has nutritional merit – vitamin A, vitamin K2, butyric acid, decent absorption profile. The problem is not whether ghee is good or bad. The problem is the math. A teaspoon of ghee on every roti, four rotis a day, adds 180 calories … Read more
‘I just had roti and sabzi’ sounds like the most innocent meal in the world. But that sentence can mean anything from 250 calories (2 small rotis + steamed lauki) to 750 calories (4 ghee rotis + fried aloo gobi). The sabzi choice and the oil quantity change the equation completely. Roti and Sabzi is … Read more
You are at a North Indian restaurant. The waiter asks ‘roti ya naan?’ Most people pick naan because it is fluffier, softer, and somehow feels more special. They do not realise they just made a 200-calorie decision. One butter naan has nearly the calories of three rotis. Two butter naans plus a cheese naan plus … Read more
Ghee makes everything taste like home. That golden spoonful your mother puts on each roti is love in liquid form. It is also 45 calories per teaspoon, and nobody in any Indian kitchen has ever measured it with an actual spoon. This is the complete calorie breakdown for roti with ghee. Every variant, every preparation … Read more