White rice vs Wheat atta: nutrition per 100 g

Every value here is for the dry ingredient: raw milled rice and wheat flour before water is added. That is the fairest way to compare them, because the plate hides the difference. Rice absorbs a great deal of water as it boils, so a bowl of cooked rice looks large but holds much less dry grain than its size suggests. A roti, cooked on a dry tawa, keeps less water and is denser. A bowl of rice and a stack of rotis made from the same weight of dry grain or flour carry broadly similar energy, with rice slightly ahead.

Raw white rice has 356 kcal and 78.2 g of carbohydrate per 100 g, ranking 2nd of 256 foods for carbohydrate. Wheat atta has 320 kcal and 64.2 g. Atta also has more protein, 10.6 g against 7.9 g, meeting 20 per cent of a man's daily need per 100 g against 15 per cent for rice.

The biggest single gap is fibre. Atta has 11.4 g per 100 g, about 4.1 times the 2.8 g in white rice, because atta is ground from the whole grain while rice has been polished. This is the main reason a roti meal tends to digest more slowly than a rice meal of the same size and keeps hunger away a little longer.

Atta has about 6.3 times the iron of white rice (4.1 mg against 0.65 mg) and 6.6 times the magnesium (125 mg against 19 mg). Zinc is 2.85 mg against 1.21 mg, phosphorus 315 mg against 96 mg and potassium 311 mg against 108 mg. Selenium is the most lopsided figure in this pair: 53.1 micrograms in atta against 1.0 in rice. White rice ranks last of 14 cereals and millets for iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc.

Thiamine shows the cost of polishing most clearly: 0.42 mg in atta against 0.05 mg in white rice, about 8.4 times as much. Atta also has more folate, 29 against 9 micrograms, and more niacin, vitamin B6 and vitamin E.

Rice and roti divide India roughly by region: rice in the south, east, north-east and along the coasts, roti across the north and centre, and both on many plates in between. Rice is soft, gluten-free and easy to digest, which is why it is the food of choice during illness, for weaning and for older adults. It pairs naturally with dal, sambar, rasam and fish curry. Roti pairs with dry sabzi, dal and curd, and its gluten makes it unsuitable for people with coeliac disease.