Calories in Masala Arbi

Masala arbi is a dry sabzi: the roots are boiled, peeled, sliced or pressed flat, and fried with ajwain and spices until the outside crisps. The recipe behind the figure uses 100 g of arbi and 1 tablespoon of oil and calls that one bowl. That is not a large amount of the vegetable, though a katori on a home thali may hold less still. The figure fits this recipe and this serving; arbi fried in deep oil, as it often is, will not match it.

Arbi is a starchy root, closer to potato than to a green vegetable, and the split shows both the starch and the frying. Fat supplies 58% of the energy, carbohydrate 35% and protein 7%. The fat is the tablespoon of oil; the 18.8 g of carbohydrate is the arbi. Set against the potato dishes in the same comparison, masala arbi at 215 kcal sits well above sookhe aloo at 109 kcal, which is also a dry sabzi but is cooked with far less oil, and close to dahi aloo at 227 kcal.

A bowl of masala arbi works out to about 10% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 13% of a woman's. Because arbi is a starchy root, the bowl is best counted with the roti and rice, not with the green vegetables. It has 3.5 g of protein and 3.6 g of fibre, so a meal of arbi and roti alone is thin on both. Dal or curd for protein, and a leafy or salad vegetable for fibre, fill it out. Two bowls come to 430 kcal.

Arbi must be cooked through; the raw root irritates the mouth and throat, and boiling before frying takes care of that. On the nutrition side the caveat is starch plus oil: 18.8 g of carbohydrate and 13.8 g of fat in a small bowl. People who are counting carbohydrate for diabetes, or who have been given a diet for kidney disease, should check with their doctor or dietitian how arbi fits their plan.