Split Peas

Food · Legume · Food, Typed Supps

One of the highest fibre-to-calorie foods around, and it skips the overnight soak most dried beans need.

Stage by stage

Intake (No soak needed): Split peas cook straight from dry, unlike most whole dried beans that need an overnight soak.
Stomach (Protein & starch digestion): Protein and complex carbohydrate digestion begins.
Small intestine (Fibre, folate & potassium absorbed): A cup supplies around 16g fibre — among the highest fibre-to-calorie ratios of any common legume.
Gut bacteria (Fermented for short-chain fats): Unabsorbed fibre feeds gut bacteria, which ferment it into short-chain fatty acids.

Timing

Any meal — no specific pairing is needed to get their fibre and folate.

Time to effect

Weeks: Fibre and folate status build over weeks of regular intake.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

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

Satiety

253 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — very high. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.

Environmental footprint

1 kg CO2e and 397 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Peas" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £2.2 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Fibre
Plant protein
Folate
Potassium

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 87
Protein: 6.6g
Carbohydrate: 9.1g
of which sugars: 2.9g
Fat: 0.4g
of which saturated: 0.1g
Fibre: 8.3g
Sodium: 9mg

Food vs. supplement

A cup of cooked split peas delivers about 16g fibre alongside 16g protein, folate, and potassium — an isolated fibre supplement like psyllium gives only the fibre.

Kitchen tip

No soaking needed — rinse and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes until tender.

Common myth

“Legumes always cause gas, so they’re not worth eating regularly.” In reality: The gas comes from fermentable sugars and does settle — studies show it returns to baseline within about 8 weeks as the gut microbiome adapts to regular legume intake.