Curry Powder

Food · Pantry & Condiment · Food, Typed Supps

Fifty-three per cent fibre and 25 mg of vitamin E. In teaspoons.

Stage by stage

Bloom it (The pan): The aroma compounds are fat-soluble and need hot oil to be released.
Fibre (Gut): 53.2 g per 100 g, which at a teaspoon is about 1 g — real but small.
Non-haem iron (Circulation): 19.1 mg per 100 g, absorbed at 2–20% and helped by acid in the meal.
Vitamin E (Cell membranes): 25.24 mg per 100 g from the seed oils in the blend.

Timing

Into the fat, early. The flavour compounds and the vitamin E both need it, and the iron absorbs better with acid later in the dish.

Time to effect

Seconds: Blooming in oil releases the aromatics.
—: Nothing accumulates at teaspoon serves.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. May contain: Celery, Gluten, Mustard, Tree nuts. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Keto. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP, Gluten-free.

Satiety

Not scored: the satiety index is measured on 240 kcal servings, and nobody eats a 240 kcal serving of this. The question does not apply rather than the answer being unknown.

Cost band

Pricey — roughly £18 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 294
Protein: 14.3g
Carbohydrate: 2.8g
of which sugars: 2.8g
Fat: 14g
of which saturated: 1.6g
Fibre: 53.2g
Sodium: 52mg

Food vs. supplement

Curry powder and taco seasoning are the same kind of product with sodium differing a hundredfold — 52 mg against 6,238 mg per 100 g. That gap is entirely formulation, and it is the clearest argument for reading spice blend labels at all.

Kitchen tip

Thirty seconds in hot oil before the onions go in. Raw curry powder tastes dusty, and blooming it also releases the fat-soluble compounds.

Common myth

“Curry powder is what Indian food is made with.” In reality: It is a British invention — an attempt to bottle in one jar what Indian cooking assembles fresh for each dish from separate whole spices, often toasted and ground on the day. There is no single traditional recipe because it was never a traditional ingredient. It is a genuinely useful shortcut with almost no sodium, which is more than can be said for most things in the seasoning aisle.