How Much Protein Is Actually in Sattu?

Last updated: 1 September 2026

Lower than the number on most packets, and nobody has measured it more than once. The single modern laboratory analysis of a market sattu found 11.19 g of protein per 100 g.

This is important because in India, the country's own standards permit sattu to have as low as 12% protein. The figure that people talk about, 20 to 26 g, belongs to a completely different food, and the way it has been associated with sattu should be looked into.

Where does the 20 to 26 gram figure come from?

From roasted whole Bengal gram, which is bhuna chana rather than sattu. ICMR-NIN's older Gopalan tables measured it at 22 g of protein per 100 g, alongside 369 kcal and 9 mg of iron.

Those are the numbers that circulate. They describe a whole roasted seed, not a roasted seed that has then been dehusked, milled and often blended with other grains.

The attribution usually given for them is wrong in a checkable way. Many pages credit "ICMR's Indian Food Composition Tables 2017", so we searched the full published tables. There is no entry for sattu, none for besan, and no roasted pulse of any kind.

The reason is structural and the book states it: Indian food composition tables have largely focused on foods in their raw state. The only roasted cereal entry in all 528 foods is roasted wheat vermicelli.

What did a laboratory find in a market sattu?

Considerably less. CSIR-CFTRI analysed a chickpea-based sattu bought from the market as the control for a 2022 formulation study and reported it per 100 g.

Component	Measured
Protein	11.19 g
Carbohydrate	70.77 g
Total dietary fibre	12.58 g
Fat	6.90 g
Moisture	8.40 g
Ash	2.55 g
Energy	391 kcal

Carry one caveat with this. It is a single market sample used as a control, not a survey, so it establishes that a sattu of this composition reached a shop shelf rather than that all sattu is like this.

That single result is still the strongest evidence available, and it sits roughly half the distance below the figure on the packets. It also falls short of the lowest grade India permits.

What does Indian law require sattu to contain?

Two instruments, and they do not agree. The Bureau of Indian Standards specification IS 16892:2018 grades sattu into three tiers by minimum protein: Special at 20%, Standard at 16%, and General at 12%.

FSSAI takes a different route. Regulation 2.4.33, in force since July 2021 and set out in the standard for cereals and cereal products, requires crude protein of at least 20% on a dry basis, with moisture no higher than 8%.

The gap between them is the point. FSSAI's rule applies only to chana sattu, since it is written specifically around Cicer arietinum. Barley, wheat, maize and multigrain sattu fall outside it, leaving them covered only by the voluntary BIS specification whose General grade allows 12%.

The direction of travel is worth noting too. The older chana-specific standard, IS 14613:1998, demanded 21% and has since been superseded. Both current instruments ask for less than the one they replaced.

For comparison, plain besan is held to a higher bar than sattu. The BIS specification for Bengal gram flour requires at least 21% protein on a dry basis, above all three sattu grades.

Is sattu actually a low glycemic index food?

There is no measured answer, because sattu has never been glycemic index tested in humans. It appears in none of the 4,385 records in the University of Sydney's GI database.

The circulating figure of 28 to 35 is the amount for boiled whole chickpeas. The international GI tables give chickpeas at 28 plus or minus 9 and the individual boiled entries behind that mean run 31, 33, 35 and 36, which is exactly the quoted range.

Moving that number to a roasted flour runs against the food science rather than with it. Whole boiled legumes measure low largely because intact cell walls slow starch digestion, and milling destroys that structure. In the same tables, chickpea flour bread measures 55, and bread from extruded chickpea flour measures 67.

The two estimates that do exist for sattu point the same way. CFTRI's in vitro method put its market sattu at 60, and a Punjab Agricultural University study put traditional barley sattu at 60.23. Both sets of authors describe their results as medium rather than low.

Neither is a human GI measurement, and an in vitro estimate is not interchangeable with one. They are the only published numbers, and both sit near 60 rather than near 28.

What does roasting do to the protein?

Less than it appears to, and not all of it good. A large part of the apparent protein gain from dry heat is water leaving rather than protein arriving.

A 2020 study in Food Science and Nutrition compared baked, cooked and extruded chickpea flour and concluded that no processing method dramatically altered the protein content. Its own summary of dry heat is the useful part.

Digestibility came out lowest for the baked route, at 84.6% against 87.1% for cooking and 86.6% for extrusion. The lysine score followed: the baked sample was the only one of the three to fall below 1.0, at 0.94.

That fits the chemistry. Dry heat drives the Maillard reaction, and lysine is the amino acid it consumes first. Chickpea is unusually exposed here, carrying the highest measured level of an early Maillard marker of any raw pulse tested.

Traditional sand roasting is milder than its numbers suggest, which is the redeeming detail. In measured work the sand bed sat at 200°C to 250°C while the grain itself only reached 90°C to 128°C.

Does roasting remove the antinutrients?

Barely, and this is where roasting compares worst. Roasting is the weakest of the common treatments against both phytate and tannin.

Measured on chickpea at 150°C for thirty minutes, phytic acid fell by 5.89% and tannin by 25%. Boiling the same pulse cut phytate by 57.35% and tannin by 82.25%, and dehulling and germination both beat roasting comfortably.

Roasting also costs minerals. In the same 2019 study, zinc fell from 7.06 to 5.47 mg/kg and calcium from 1267 to 845 mg/kg.

Thus, the case for sattu is its ease of usage, preservation quality and the fact that it does not require cooking; rather than its nutritional superiority. Soaking and boiling pulses does a better job at reducing phytates than does roasting flour.

SatRas sells desi black chana and whole green moong in its dal and chana range, and the SatRas FAQ page covers sourcing and pack sizes.

What one market sample cannot show

What is in any particular packet. One market sample is not a survey, and no published study has compared sattu across brands or regions. Given a standard whose lowest grade permits 12% protein, that survey is exactly the missing work.

Some of the chemistry is also unmeasured. There is no published available-lysine or furosine figure for roasted chickpea specifically, so the lysine discussion above rests on baked chickpea flour rather than on sand-roasted gram.

One trap is worth naming because it drives a lot of confusion. Older Indian tables report crude fibre and modern ones report total dietary fibre, and the two are not comparable. Roasted gram reads as 1 g of crude fibre and around 12 g of total dietary fibre, and quoting the higher figure beside the older protein figure mixes two different measurements.

The summer cooling claim has no published physiological measurement behind it at all. It is traditional usage, and even the scholarly review of the Ayurvedic texts describes sattu as a drink for energy and strength rather than for cooling.

This article is educational and is not medical advice. If you are managing diabetes or another health condition, speak to a qualified doctor or registered dietitian rather than relying on a published index.

Frequently asked questions

Is sattu the same as besan?

No. Besan is raw Bengal gram milled into flour, while sattu is roasted first and then ground, which is why one needs cooking and the other does not. India holds besan to the higher protein bar of the two, requiring at least 21% on a dry basis against sattu's three grades of 20%, 16% and 12%.

Does sattu cool the body in summer?

There is no published physiological measurement of this, in either direction. It is long-standing traditional usage rather than a tested effect, and the scholarly review of the classical Ayurvedic references describes sattu, as mantha, in terms of instant energy and strength rather than cooling.

Is sattu high in fibre?

It depends entirely on which measurement is quoted. The older Indian tables report roasted gram at 1 g of crude fibre per 100 g, while total dietary fibre by modern methods came out at 12.58 g in the laboratory analysis above. Both are correct for their own assay, and mixing them is misleading.

Can sattu be made from barley?

Yes. The BIS specification defines sattu from maize, gram, barley or wheat, singly or in combination, so barley sattu is squarely within the standard. FSSAI's rule is narrower and covers only chana sattu, so a barley sattu has no mandatory compositional standard to meet.

How can you check a sattu pack against the standard?

Read the protein figure on the nutrition panel. Chana sattu should carry at least 20% crude protein on a dry basis to meet FSSAI's rule, and a figure closer to 12% would only satisfy the lowest voluntary BIS grade. A pack that prints no protein figure is telling you nothing you can check.

Is roasted chana the same as sattu?

They are related but not identical, and the difference explains most of the confusion about protein. Roasted chana is the whole seed with its coat, while sattu is that seed dehusked, milled and often blended with other grains. The 22 g protein figure in circulation was measured on the whole roasted seed.