Atta vs Maida: nutrition per 100 g

Maida is often described as empty, but its protein holds up. Refined flour has 10.4 g per 100 g against 10.6 g in whole wheat atta, because most wheat protein sits in the starchy endosperm that both flours keep. That same protein, gluten, is what gives naan, bhatura and bakery bread their stretch. Where maida loses is in the bran and germ, which carry the fibre, minerals and B vitamins. So the useful question is not which flour has protein, but which keeps the rest of the grain.

Atta has 11.4 g of dietary fibre per 100 g, about 4.1 times the 2.8 g in maida. It ranks 35th of 256 foods for fibre and 5th of 14 cereals and millets. Removing the bran also concentrates starch, so maida has 74.3 g of carbohydrate against 64.2 g, and 352 kcal against 320 kcal. In practice, refined flour digests faster and leaves a person hungry sooner, while a chapati of atta keeps fibre in the meal without any extra effort.

The mineral gap is wide. Atta has 4.1 mg of iron per 100 g against 1.77 mg, and covers 22 per cent of a man's daily iron need against 9 per cent for maida. Magnesium falls from 125 mg to 31 mg, zinc from 2.85 mg to 0.88 mg, about 3.2 times less, and phosphorus from 315 mg to 110 mg. Potassium halves, from 311 mg to 148 mg. Calcium is modest in both, 31 and 20 mg. These are the nutrients Indian diets most often run short of, and atta delivers them through a daily staple.

Milling strips most B vitamins as well. Atta has 0.42 mg of thiamine against 0.15 mg, 2.37 mg of niacin against 0.77 mg and 0.25 mg of vitamin B6 against 0.08 mg, roughly three times the amount in each case. Folate is 29 micrograms against 16, and vitamin E 0.21 mg against 0.05 mg. In requirement terms, 100 g of atta covers 23 per cent of a man's thiamine need and maida 8 per cent.

Atta is the flour of the everyday roti, paratha, puri and thepla. Maida is the flour of naan, rumali roti, bhatura, samosa pastry, mathri, bakery bread and most biscuits, where its fine texture and stretch are hard to replace. Many maida foods are also deep-fried or made with butter and sugar, which adds far more energy than the flour itself. Half-and-half mixes work well for parathas, and whole wheat versions of pav and bread are now common.