Calories in Sprouts Chaat

The recipe is the home version of the dish: 50 g each of sprouted moong, boiled potato, cucumber and tomato, 30 g of onion and 25 g of lemon, tossed with salt and chaat masala. That makes one small plate, a snack-sized helping. Notice that the sprouts are only one of four equal parts, so most of the plate is vegetable and potato. A plate from a chaat stall is built differently, with more sprouts or boiled chana, a ladle of sweet and green chutneys and a handful of sev, and the figure here does not describe it.

Carbohydrate supplies 74% of the energy, protein 17% and fat 9%. The potato and the sprouted moong provide the starch, and the moong most of the protein; cucumber, tomato, onion and lemon contribute water, sharpness and part of the 3.5 g of fibre. With no oil and no dairy in the recipe, fat is almost absent at 0.8 g. At 83 kcal it sits close to the other light sides in the set: a bowl of sprouts salad is 77 kcal and a bowl of cucumber raita 90 kcal.

One plate is about 4% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 5% of a woman's, which makes it one of the lighter things to eat between meals. It suits the evening slot that is otherwise filled by samosas, biscuits or namkeen. Its protein is modest, 3.5 g, so it takes the edge off hunger more through bulk and fibre than through protein. Two plates give 166 kcal and 7 g of protein; adding boiled chana or a little paneer does more than a third plate would.

Sprouts carry a food-safety caveat that matters more than their calories. They are germinated in warmth and moisture, which bacteria also like, and street chaat is assembled by hand and left in the open. Rinse sprouts thoroughly and steam them lightly at home. Young children, older adults and anyone advised by a doctor to avoid raw foods, for example in pregnancy, should eat them cooked. The plate is salted as well, and chaat masala adds more.