Pudding
Food · Grain · Food, Typed Supps
Homemade puddings vary enormously. What is in them depends entirely on the recipe.
Stage by stage
- Intake (Soft, little chewing): A moist, low-resistance food that needs almost no oral processing.
- Stomach (Starch, sugar and fat digestion): Refined flour and sugar break down fast; added butter or suet slows emptying.
- Small intestine (Rapid glucose absorption): Sugars absorb quickly, with dried fruit fibre providing only modest slowing.
- Circulation and storage (Used or stored): Surplus glucose is stored; saturated fat from suet or butter matters with regular intake.
Time to effect
- Under an hour: Blood glucose rises within roughly 30 to 60 minutes of eating.
Allergens
Contains: Gluten, Eggs, Milk. May contain: Soya, Sulphites, Tree nuts. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.
Eating patterns
Fits: Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.
Satiety
122 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — moderate. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.
Environmental footprint
1.6 kg CO2e and 648 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Wheat & rye" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.
Cost band
Cheap — roughly £2.5 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.
Key nutrients
Nutrition per 100g
- Calories: 184
- Protein: 3.6g
- Carbohydrate: 37g
- of which sugars: 23.4g
- Fat: 2.6g
- of which saturated: 1.6g
- Fibre: 1.1g
- Sodium: 162mg
Food vs. supplement
No supplement angle applies. These are dessert foods, and the useful comparison is with other desserts and with the portion served, not with any nutrient they might contribute.
Kitchen tip
The sauce is the part worth thinking about, because it is not counted in any of these figures. Serving a sticky date pudding with the butterscotch on the side rather than poured over changes the plate more than any substitution inside the pudding itself.
Common myth
"A fruit pudding is the lighter choice." In reality: Dried fruit brings sugar with it, and traditional steamed puddings are held together by suet or butter. The fruit does not make the pudding light; it adds a little fibre to something that is still built from fat and sugar.
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