Sweets and Sugar: Reading an Indian Sweet Honestly

Traditional Indian sweets are calorie dense. Sugar or jaggery, ghee, and flour or dal, in roughly that order. No amount of framing changes that, and shops that market sweets as health food are being dishonest.

What is true is that the ingredients are simple and identifiable. A Sunnundalu is urad dal, jaggery and ghee. There is no emulsifier, no preservative and no colouring, and that is a meaningful difference from most packaged confectionery.

On jaggery versus sugar: jaggery is less refined and retains some iron and minerals, and it has a lower glycemic response than white sugar, though the difference is smaller than commonly claimed. It is a better choice, not a free pass.

Ghee has been unfairly treated. It is a saturated fat and portions matter, but it is a traditional, minimally processed fat and considerably better understood than the hydrogenated vegetable fats that replaced it in cheaper sweets.

Practically: a single piece after a meal is a reasonable thing for most people. A box open on the kitchen counter for a week is where festival eating goes wrong, because sweets are eaten by availability rather than appetite.

For anyone managing blood sugar, the jaggery-based sweets and the dry fruit sweets are the more sensible end of the range, and portion size still matters more than which sweet you choose.

We would rather you ate less of something made properly than more of something made cheaply.