Sooji, 1 Kg

Made from wheat, commonly used in dishes such as upma, rava dosa and halwa. During processing, the outer bran and germ layers of the wheat grain are stripped away, removing much of its natural fiber, vitamins, and minerals. What remains is a starchy granule that lacks the nutritional value of whole grain flours and leads to glycemic spikes in the human body.

While it may not be realistic to eliminate sooji entirely from your pantry, we do recommend minimising its use. Here are a few ways you can do this:

• Use whole grain ingredients such as oats, millets and daliya in your upma, or ragi flour in chilla / dosa batter
• Instead of using sooji alone in batters, consider combining it with oats flour, quinoa flour, amaranth flour, besan or kuttu flour; and for crunch use roasted oats, nut meal or seeds
• If replacing sooji is not an option, combine sooji based foods with fibe, protein- and healthy-fat rich accompaniments