Calories in Soya Chunks Curry

The recipe behind the figure is a soya and pea curry: 20 g of soya chunks, 50 g of green peas, 60 g of tomato, 30 g of onion and 10 g of ginger, cooked in 10 g of oil and served as one bowl. Soya chunks swell a good deal when soaked, so a small weight goes a long way in the gravy. Even so, 20 g is a modest amount, and a home cook may well use more per person. A katori at home may also hold less gravy than the recipe's bowl. The 184 kcal, and the protein figure with it, apply to this recipe and this serving.

People choose soya chunks for protein, so the split may surprise: fat supplies 56% of the energy, carbohydrate 29% and protein 15%. The fat is almost entirely the 10 g of cooking oil, since soya chunks themselves carry very little fat. The protein, 6.8 g a bowl, comes from the chunks and the peas together. That is well ahead of bhindi sabzi, which has the same 184 kcal and 3 g of protein, but behind matar mushroom at 10.7 g and every paneer dish in the comparison. The peas and soya also give the bowl 6.4 g of fibre.

One bowl of soya chunks curry takes about 9% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 11% of a woman's. Its 6.8 g of protein is useful but not enough to be the only protein of a meal; two bowls give 13.6 g for 368 kcal, and three give 20.4 g. With roti or rice and a bowl of curd or dal, it makes a balanced vegetarian plate. The 6.4 g of fibre helps the meal feel filling.

The protein figure is easy to overestimate. A bowl of this curry has 6.8 g, because it contains only 20 g of soya chunks; the high protein numbers quoted for soya chunks are for the dry product by weight, not for a serving of curry. Anyone with a thyroid condition, a soya allergy or a kidney problem who has been given advice about soya or protein should follow their doctor or dietitian.