One component is doing seventy per cent of the damage.
It is rarely the one you think.

Everyone treats this as the light option. Seven grams of protein and twenty-one of fat.

46% in one component

Sooji is refined wheat. Upma is closer to white bread than to porridge.

43% in one component

A whole meal's calories before anyone puts butter on top. Then somebody does.

49% in one component

Bread is a sponge. Deep-fried bread is a sponge that has been held under oil.

41% in one component

Twenty grams of protein in five minutes. The best breakfast on this site, and nobody treats it as one.

59% in one component

The chole is genuinely good for you — sixteen grams of fibre. The bhature are the dish.

60% in one component

Nine hundred and forty calories, and the chicken is the smallest part of the problem.

52% in one component

Better balanced than most restaurant food. The portion is the problem, not the recipe.

43% in one component

People order this believing dal is the healthy choice. The lentils are 132 calories. The rest is not.

60% in one component

Rajma is one of the best things you can eat. It usually arrives buried under twice the rice it needs.

44% in one component

Paneer is protein and fat in roughly equal measure. Then the gravy doubles the fat again.

37% in one component

Kadhi without the pakoras is one of the lightest things in North Indian cooking.

34% in one component

This is chole bhature done properly. Same chickpeas, roughly half the calories.

48% in one component

Forty-four grams of protein and almost no carbohydrate. One of the few restaurant dishes where the honest advice is order more of it.

71% in one component

This is what butter chicken should have been. Same bird, no cream, nearly twice the protein per calorie.

34% in one component

The cheapest complete protein in Indian cooking. Then it gets cooked in three times the oil it needs.

38% in one component

Mince brings its own fat, and then the recipe adds more on top.

38% in one component

The paneer dish worth ordering. No cream, no cashew, all of the protein.

88% in one component

Steamed and fermented, which is good. But three idli carry more than their reputation suggests, and the chutney is a quarter of the plate.

49% in one component

The dosa is fine. It is what the tawa and the chutney add that you are not counting.

34% in one component

The sambar is doing all the nutritional work and getting a third of the plate.

63% in one component

One of the few Indian dishes that is genuinely light without trying to be.

62% in one component

Thicker than a dosa, which means more batter and more oil to cook it through.

44% in one component

Fish is the most efficient protein on any Indian menu. The coconut is where it gets expensive.

36% in one component

Two hundred and fifty calories in four bites, and more than half of it is oil.

53% in one component

The bhaji is mashed vegetables. Then someone adds three tablespoons of butter.

44% in one component

One of the least damaging things on the cart. The water was never the problem.

68% in one component

Puffed rice is nearly weightless. The sev and the sweet chutney are not.

39% in one component

Refined bread wrapped around deep-fried potato. There is no protein in it anywhere.

32% in one component

Besan is actually good for you. Then it spends four minutes in a fryer.

64% in one component

Steamed, with actual protein inside. Then people order them fried.

52% in one component

The protein is real. So is the batter, the fryer, and the sugar in the sauce.

46% in one component

Fried milk solids soaked in sugar syrup. There is no lighter version. Eat it deliberately.

66% in one component

Roughly half the weight of a jalebi is sugar syrup. That is the design, not a flaw.

52% in one component

Two small balls, three hundred and fifty calories. The ghee is why they taste like that.

51% in one component

The easiest win on this site, and the one nobody counts.

65% in one component

Sixteen grams of fibre for 525 calories. This is the baseline everything else should be measured against.

46% in one component

Rice and dal cooked together. The only dish here where the ghee is arguably earning its place.

45% in one component

Thirteen grams of protein and nine of fibre for 270 calories. Almost nothing else here comes close.

54% in one component

The dal you should actually be eating. Dal makhani's calories come from the cream, not the lentils.

47% in one component