Calories in Sattu Drink

The recipe is the sweet version. It stirs 6 tablespoons of sattu, the flour of roasted Bengal gram, and 5 tablespoons of sugar into water and divides it into 3 portions; the source does not define the glass, so the figure is for one of those portions. Each has 2 tablespoons of sattu and 5 teaspoons of sugar. Many people in Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh drink sattu the other way, salted, with lemon, roasted cumin and chopped onion and no sugar. That glass, and a thicker one made with more sattu, would give different figures from the one here.

Carbohydrate supplies 86% of the energy, protein 9% and fat 5%. Of the 27.5 g of carbohydrate, 21.1 g is sugars, nearly all from the 5 teaspoons stirred in, so the sugar outweighs the sattu as a source of energy in this recipe. The 2 tablespoons of sattu contribute the 3 g of protein, the 2.1 g of fibre and the remaining starch. Sattu has a reputation as a protein drink; made this way it is a sweet drink with a little protein in it. The protein rises only when more sattu goes into the glass.

One portion of sweet sattu is about 6% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 8% of a woman's. Two glasses come to 250 kcal and 6 g of protein, three to 375 kcal and 9 g. As a mid-morning drink in summer it is more substantial than a plain sharbat because of the gram flour, but in this sweet form it does not carry enough protein to count as a meal or a protein supplement. Made salted and thick, with a second spoonful of sattu, it is closer to the filling breakfast drink it is known as.

The sugar is what to notice: 21.1 g of sugars in one portion, which is more than the sattu's own contribution. Three glasses carry 82.5 g of carbohydrate. Claims that sattu cools the body or builds muscle are not something the data measures; it shows 3 g of protein and 2.1 g of fibre a glass. People with diabetes should ask their doctor or dietitian how sattu, sweet or salted, fits their plan.