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No arguments over taste
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It requires a lot of skill to not mess up the jowar roti during cooking
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PHOTO G. KRISHNASWAMY
WINTER SPECIAL Jawar Roti being prepared at a tiffin centre in Dilshuknagar
Making jowar roti is one of the toughest experiences for a cook. The dough is notoriously hard to knead, it requires a lot of skill to not mess up the roti during cooking, and the finished product is tough on the cud. Try telling a jowar roti lover that all the hard work may not be worth it. To attempt it is to show you lack taste and are out of touch with good old fashioned, healthful, earthy, rural cuisine.
The jowar roti has many loud champions who compare it very favourably to wheat on every point: taste, nutrition and calories. Some even claim that rural folks are healthier because they eat jowar roti; city folks apparently owe their health problems to wheat.
There is no arguing with taste, but nutrition and healthfulness are objective terms, and it is time chapatti vs. jowar roti was decided on the basis of facts.
Hundred gms of jowar contains 339 Calorie. Whole wheat contains about the same number of calories.
Wheat contains more protein, dietary fibre, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, niacin, riboflavin, and thiamine when compared with jowar. Practically the only thing jowar beats wheat at is in iron content, and that too by the tiniest of margins.
Diabetics will be pleased to note that wheat is a better food for them than jowar. The chapatti has a lower glycemic index when compared with jowar roti, which means that it will release sugar into the bloodstream at a slower pace. Jowar may be tougher to chew but, surprisingly, wheat is much higher in dietary fibre.
Wheat has a better amino acid profile when compared with jowar.
The jowar roti belts of south India have among the highest rates of pellagra in the country. Jowar also contains anti-nutritional and toxic principles that can lead to other nutritional deficiencies on prolonged consumption.
Wheat is not recommended for the minuscule part of the population that is gluten-sensitive. Jowar, which is relatively gluten-free, is undoubtedly a better food for them.
If this were a boxing match, jowar would be knocked out in the second round. Jowar is fifth in importance among the cereal grains, far below the hallowed position occupied by wheat.
So do not despair if you find it too hard to knead jowar dough; it really isn't worth it unless you are doing it for the taste.
RAJIV. M
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