Healthy Food in Bhubaneswar: Dalma, Pakhala, Machha Besara and Chhena, With Calories and Protein

Healthy eating in Bhubaneswar begins with the Odia thali

Odia cooking has a head start on most Indian cuisines when it comes to eating well: it is generally described as using less oil and less spice than its neighbours. A Bhubaneswar lunch of bhata (rice), dalma, a besara of vegetables or fish in mustard paste, and a saga (greens) is already close to a balanced plate. What tips it over is volume: second and third helpings of rice, a fried item or two on the side, and sweets made from chhena and sugar.

Below are the numbers for the food people actually eat in Bhubaneswar, from the office canteen in Patia to Sunday lunch at home. Because so much of Odia food is vegetarian, our high-protein vegetarian Indian diet is the best companion guide; here we stay with local dishes.

Calories in dalma, besara and an Odia lunch in Bhubaneswar

Dalma is the dish that makes Odia lunches nutritious. It's toor dal cooked with chopped vegetables such as raw papaya, plantain, brinjal, pumpkin and gourd, finished with panch phutana. INDB's recipe gives about 314 kcal and 12.9 g protein for a bowl of roughly 264 g: a pulse and two or three vegetables in one serving. Here is how the main parts of a Bhubaneswar lunch compare:

Put together, the numbers show where the room is. Two plates of rice with a bowl of dalma and a mustard fish curry comes to about 1,357 kcal and 51 g protein, before any bhaja. Three-quarters of a plate of rice, the same dalma, a lighter fish curry and a bowl of santula is about 979 kcal and 45 g protein: nearly 380 kcal less for almost the same protein, and more vegetables. The rice portion is the lever; the dalma and fish can stay.

Pakhala in summer: what's in the bowl

Pakhala, cooked rice soaked in water and often left to ferment overnight, is Bhubaneswar's answer to April and May. Basi pakhala is the fermented version, saja pakhala is made fresh with water and lemon, and dahi pakhala adds curd. Odias even mark Pakhala Dibasa on 20 March. It's served with green chilli, onion, badi chura and sides such as aloo poda, saga bhaja, sukhua (dried fish) or fried fish.

We found no laboratory analysis of pakhala, and won't guess one. The water adds nothing, so its energy is essentially the rice in it: a bowl made from 100 g of raw rice carries roughly the 352 kcal of a plate of boiled rice, plus any curd. That makes the sides the real decision. A pakhala lunch with a bowl of light fish curry, a glass of ghola dahi and raw cucumber and onion comes to about 734 kcal and 37 g protein. Swap the fish for badi chura and fried potato and the protein falls sharply while the oil rises.

• Best sides for pakhala: a piece of grilled or curried fish, two boiled eggs, saga cooked with little oil, or a bowl of dalma.
• Keep small: badi chura and saga bhaja, both made with mustard oil, and fried fish.
• Watch the salt: sukhua, badi and pickles are all salty, and the national dietary guidelines cap salt at 5 g a day from every source combined.

High-protein food in Bhubaneswar: fish, crab and chhena per 100 g

Fish, prawns and crab are everyday food in Odisha, and they're among the leanest proteins you can buy in Bhubaneswar. Here they are, raw, per 100 g:

Mackerel, mullet and rohu give about 20 g protein for 100 kcal, and prawns and crab are leaner still. Hilsa is far richer, from its oil, so it's a once-a-week treat rather than the daily fish. For vegetarians, chhena is the obvious protein: 50 g gives about 9.4 g protein for about 153 kcal, which makes chhena tarkari a good dinner. For other sources, from soya to sprouts, read protein in Indian food; to set a daily target, use the protein intake calculator.

How much protein? The ICMR-NIN guidelines set the adult allowance at 0.83 g per kilo of body weight, so a 65 kg person needs roughly 54 g daily. If you lift weights, aim higher: 1.4–2.0 g per kilo is the range in the sports-nutrition position stand from the ISSN.

Chhena poda, rasagola and Odisha's sweets

Chhena poda, baked chhena with sugar and semolina, was created after 1947 by Sudarsan Sahu at his hotel in Dashapalla, and its flavour comes from caramelised sugar. INDB's recipe gives about 256 kcal and 10.2 g protein for a slice of roughly 74 g. That is more protein than most Indian sweets, but it's still a sweet: about 345 kcal per 100 g, much of it from sugar.

Rasagola, chhena jhili and kheeri are harder to count. INDB's rasgulla recipe includes all the syrup, so its number isn't what you actually eat, and we found no reliable figure for the others. ICMR-NIN recommends keeping added sugar below 5% of daily energy, which is about 25 g on a 2,000 kcal day. In practice, choose one sweet a few times a week, squeeze the syrup out of a rasagola, and make chhena poda a shared slice rather than a whole one.

A 1,790 kcal day of Bhubaneswar food

Here is one way to put an Odia day together using only dishes already counted on this page. At about 1,790 kcal it's a fat-loss level for many men and a maintenance level for many women; check yours with the calorie deficit calculator and move the rice and rotis up or down.

Vegetarian? Use 50 g of chhena at breakfast instead of eggs, an extra half-bowl of dalma at lunch instead of fish, and 100 g of chhena tarkari at dinner instead of chicken. The total is roughly 1,660 kcal before oil and 68 g protein, so lifters should add milk or dahi. Gaining muscle? Eat a full plate of bhata at lunch and add a banana with a small handful (30 g) of peanuts in the evening. Non-Odia dishes are covered in calories in Indian food.

Healthy restaurants and food delivery in Bhubaneswar: what to order

Looking up healthy restaurants or healthy food delivery in Bhubaneswar mostly brings up salad cafés. Ordinary Odia and seafood menus are just as good, if you pick well:

• Odia thali: one serving of rice, dalma, a besara or santula, fish or egg, and skip or share the bhaja.
• Pakhala in summer: order it with fish or eggs rather than only badi chura and fried potato.
• Seafood restaurants: curried or grilled prawns, crab or pomfret over fried versions; ask for one plate of rice for two.
• Ordering in: tandoori or grilled chicken, a machha tarkari meal or khichdi, with dahi or raita alongside; get one chhena poda for the whole table.
• Street snacks: dahi bara aloo dum and bara ghuguni are fried and filling; treat them as a meal, not an extra.

If you'd like a coach to keep you on track, Personal Gym Training in Bhubaneswar works at your own gym, and group classes in Bhubaneswar let friends train together for ₹499 per person. Long days on the trail or the bike need more food: see treks near Bhubaneswar and cycling in Bhubaneswar. What a membership or a trainer costs locally is in our pages on Bhubaneswar gym fees and Bhubaneswar personal trainer fees, and see everything else on online personal training in Bhubaneswar.