By Nubo Nutrition Team
Most macro advice arrives as a ratio. Forty per cent carbohydrate, thirty protein, thirty fat, and off you go. The ratio is the least useful part. What actually changes a meal is which base you pick and which protein sits on top of it, and those two decisions are worth more than any percentage split.
Here is what that looks like in numbers we can show you.
What the three macros do
Carbohydrate is the body's most accessible fuel. Whole grains, millets, pulses, fruit and vegetables carry fibre and micronutrients along with it, which is why the source matters more than the gram count.
Protein supplies the amino acids used to build and repair tissue. In Indian kitchens that comes from dals, beans, dairy, paneer, eggs, soy foods, fish and poultry.
Fat carries energy at roughly nine calories per gram, more than double either of the others, and the body needs it to absorb vitamins A, D, E and K. Nuts, seeds, dairy and cooking oils are the usual sources. Fat is also where a bowl quietly gains two hundred calories, because sauces and dressings are mostly fat.
The ICMR-NIN Dietary Guidelines for Indians do not publish one macro split for everyone. They ask for variety across food groups. That is a weaker headline and a better instruction.
The base decides your carbohydrate
These are the per-100g values behind the bases on the Nubo menu, from the same table that feeds our nutrition page. They describe the cooked component, not the quantity in your bowl.
- Barnyard millet, cooked: 103 kcal, 3.3g protein, 19.3g carbohydrate, 1.4g fat, 3.2g fibre.
- Quinoa, cooked: 120 kcal, 4.4g protein, 21.3g carbohydrate, 1.9g fat, 2.8g fibre.
- Rice, cooked: 121 kcal, 2.5g protein, 25.2g carbohydrate, 0.4g fat, 0.4g fibre.
- Millet pasta: 165 kcal, 2.7g protein, 37.5g carbohydrate, 0.1g fat, 0g fibre in the published reference. Contains gluten.
Millet and rice sit eighteen calories apart. The fibre gap is the interesting one: 3.2g against 0.4g per 100g. Swapping rice for barnyard millet is a small calorie change and a large fibre change, and fibre is what most Indian office lunches are short of. None of that gives you the total for a finished bowl with sauce and toppings.
The protein decides almost everything else
Rounded per-100g references for named prepared components:
- Herb chicken: 256 kcal, 23.8g protein, 15.5g fat.
- Spicy chicken: 270 kcal, 24.7g protein, 14.7g fat.
- Edamame: 129 kcal, 10.7g protein, 4.8g fibre. Contains soy.
- Herb tofu: 156 kcal, 6.3g protein, 13.8g fat. Contains soy.
- Herb paneer: 322 kcal, 16.8g protein, 26.1g fat. Contains milk.
Tofu is the one people misread. At 6.3g of protein per 100g it lands well below what most people assume when they order it as the protein, because ours is prepared in oil. Edamame, at 10.7g for 129 kcal, is the most protein-efficient plant option we carry. Falafel needs care. The public reference publishes Chickpea Falafel at 372 kcal and 6.2g of protein per 100g, but the menu’s protein option is lentil falafel — a different legume, so do not carry the chickpea number across to it. Check the exact item rather than the category.
These values help compare ingredients; they do not establish a fixed protein addition for a scoop or an average finished bowl. The actual serving and the rest of the build still count.
What a finished meal actually comes to
These are the lab-certified figures for the default builds, on the rice base. A customisation changes the meal, and the serving weight is part of the number:
- Chicken Harissa Grain Bowl, 300g: 672.9 kcal, 38.4g protein, 52g carbohydrate, 34.4g fat, 6.4g fibre.
- Veg Harissa Grain Bowl, 300g: 789.2 kcal, 20.9g protein, 93.8g carbohydrate, 38.7g fat, 8.3g fibre.
- Chicken Harissa Shredded Lettuce Salad, 280g: 565.9 kcal, 36.8g protein, 30g carbohydrate, 34.1g fat, 7g fibre.
The veg build is a hundred calories heavier than the chicken build and carries half the protein. That surprises people every time. “Vegetarian” on its own tells you nothing about calories, and these totals do not establish which ingredient caused the gap, so we will not guess at one.
The listed salad is 107 kcal below the listed rice bowl, with a different serving weight and slightly less protein. That comparison applies to these default builds, not every swap or custom order.
Questions worth asking about any nutrition panel
- Is this per serving, per 100g or per 100ml? Keep grams and millilitres separate and use the unit stated by the source.
- Does the stated serving match what you will actually eat?
- Are the sauce, the toppings and the drink included, or only the base item?
- When a value is missing, is it marked unavailable, or quietly printed as zero?
Our ingredient reference lists 176 public components. 112 carry every core macro; 64 are missing at least one and say “Unavailable” rather than zero. A blank is a gap we have not closed, not a claim that the number is small.
Where this advice stops
Anyone managing kidney disease, diabetes, pregnancy, an allergy or any other medical condition needs individual advice from a qualified clinician or dietitian. General guidance and personal prescription are different things, and nothing on this page is the second one.
For everything else: pick the format, pick the protein, check the number on the live menu, and stop optimising the ratio.
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024
- World Health Organization, Healthy diet
- Nubo menu and ingredient nutrition reference
Topics: macronutrients, protein carbs fats, protein per 100g, ICMR dietary guidelines, balanced meal India, Nubo nutrition, calories in a bowl
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