Calories in Rasam

Rasam is a thin, sour, peppery broth, and the recipe behind this number is true to that. One bowl contains 10 g of raw toor dal, 50 g of tomato and half a teaspoon of oil for the tempering, along with tamarind and the spices of the rasam powder, which the ingredient table does not list. That is far less dal than any other dish in this group uses, which is why rasam ranks first of 20 when they are ordered from the lightest. A small tumbler drunk as a soup, or a ladle mixed into rice, is less than the bowl measured here.

Carbohydrate supplies 52% of the energy, fat 30% and protein 17%. The carbohydrate comes from the dal, the tomato and the tamarind, and the 3.4 g of fat mostly from the half teaspoon of oil in the tadka. Protein is 4.4 g, the lowest in the group, because there is so little dal in the bowl. Rasam is therefore a light accompaniment and an appetiser, not a substitute for a bowl of dal. Most of what is in the bowl is water, which is exactly why it is so light.

One bowl is about 5% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 6% of a woman's, so rasam hardly registers in a day's total. Two bowls come to 208 kcal and 8.8 g of protein. What it does not provide is much protein: a meal of rasam and rice needs a dal, sambar, curd, egg or another protein food beside it. Used as a warm starter or as the second course of a South Indian meal, it adds flavour and fluid for very little energy.

A bowl is only 104 kcal, but rasam is a well-salted broth and easy to drink by the tumbler. Salt, not calories, is the thing to watch here, more so when papad, pickle and salted buttermilk are on the same banana leaf. People with high blood pressure or kidney disease who have been asked to cut salt should make rasam with less of it and keep to what their doctor or dietitian has advised.