Calories in Jal Jeera

The recipe is made by the jug: 30 g of tamarind, 15 g of mint leaves, 15 g of lemon and 30 g of sugar, ground with roasted cumin and salt and stirred into water to make 6 glasses. One glass therefore has 5 g of tamarind and 5 g of sugar, with 2.5 g each of mint and lemon. The serving the databank uses is a juice glass, which is smaller than a tall tumbler. A big glass at a chaat stall, or a jug poured at home, is more than one of these servings, though at 42 kcal each the total stays modest.

Carbohydrate supplies 86% of the energy, fat 8% and protein 6%. Of the 9.4 g of carbohydrate, 8 g is counted as sugar, and it comes from two places: the 5 g of added sugar and the tamarind's own. The tamarind and mint also account for the 1.3 g of fibre, a small amount that is unusual in a drink. What stands out is not a calorie figure at all but the salt and black salt that give jal jeera its taste.

A glass is about 2% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 3% of a woman's, so as calories it hardly registers. It is usually taken before or alongside a meal as an appetiser, and it does not add anything a meal needs: 0.6 g of protein and 1.3 g of fibre. Three glasses come to 126 kcal. What it adds in real quantity is salt, so it sits more comfortably next to a simple home meal than next to chaat, pickles and papad, which are salty already.

The caveat with jal jeera is salt, not calories. Even one small glass is well salted, and a large glass or a second helping takes that higher. For most people this is fine now and then. People asked to limit salt because of high blood pressure, or a heart or kidney condition, should check with their doctor or dietitian, and can make it at home with far less salt.