Which Indian Swaps Actually Work
Reviewed by CDE Mehandi Sharma · Updated
The standard advice is to swap to lower-GI foods, and in India that usually means millets. Measured Indian data makes this more complicated than the marketing.
A study measuring the glycaemic index of traditional Indian preparations found several millet dishes scoring high rather than low. Finger millet balls came in around 98, sorghum roti around 84, maize roti near 75, and pearl millet roti around 70.
Meanwhile the pulse preparations scored dramatically lower — white chickpea sundal around 24, white peas sundal around 30 — and broken wheat upma came in around 52.
The researchers' conclusion was the useful part: being a wholegrain food does not by itself make something low GI. Processing, how intact the food structure is, and how it is cooked all move the number substantially. A millet ground fine and cooked soft behaves quite differently from a whole, minimally processed grain.
So the swaps genuinely worth making are towards whole pulses and dals, which Indian cooking already features heavily, and towards less processed forms of whatever grain you eat — coarser flour, whole grains rather than finely milled ones.
Do not replace your kitchen on the strength of a marketing claim. And be sceptical of anything sold as a diabetic superfood.