Ragi vs White rice: nutrition per 100 g

Milled white rice is one of the most concentrated carbohydrate foods in the tables: 78.2 g per 100 g, ranking 2nd of 256 foods and 1st among the 14 cereals and millets. Ragi has 66.8 g. That puts rice at 356 kcal and ragi at 321 kcal per 100 g of dry grain. The protein result surprises people who think of rice as empty: white rice has 7.9 g and ragi 7.2 g, so on protein rice is marginally ahead. Neither grain is a protein food, and dal or curd does that work in both meals.

Ragi has 11.2 g of dietary fibre per 100 g, about four times the 2.8 g in white rice. The reason is milling. Ragi grains are too small to polish, so the flour keeps its outer layers, while white rice has had its bran and germ removed. Among the 14 cereals and millets, white rice ranks 13th for fibre. More fibre means slower digestion and a fuller feeling after the meal, which is why a ball of ragi mudde tends to hold hunger off longer than the same weight of plain rice.

On minerals the two are not in the same range. Ragi has 52 times the calcium of white rice (364 mg against 7 mg), about 7.1 times the iron (4.62 mg against 0.65 mg) and 7.7 times the magnesium (146 mg against 19 mg). White rice ranks last of the 14 cereals and millets for calcium, iron, magnesium and zinc. In requirement terms, 100 g of ragi meets 36 per cent of an adult's daily calcium and 24 per cent of a man's iron; white rice meets 1 and 3 per cent.

Thiamine follows the same pattern: 0.37 mg in ragi against 0.05 mg in rice, because thiamine sits largely in the layers that polishing strips away. Ragi also has more folate, 35 against 9 micrograms, and more potassium and zinc. White rice holds a small edge on niacin, 1.69 mg against 1.34 mg, and vitamin B6, 0.12 mg against 0.05 mg.

Rice is the daily grain of the south, the east and the coasts: steamed with sambar, rasam and fish curry, or turned into idli, dosa, pongal and khichdi. Ragi has its own heartland in Karnataka, where mudde is eaten with saaru, and it appears across the south as ragi dosa, kanji and malt. In many Karnataka homes the two share one plate, a ball of mudde beside a mound of rice. The figures here are for dry grain; both take up water when cooked, so a serving on the plate weighs far more than its raw grain.