Besan in English, Hindi and Indian languages: names and meaning

Besan in English is chickpea flour, the name the USDA record for the flour prints, and gram flour in everyday English. In Hindi the word is besan, which the FSSAI standard also uses as the flour's name. Every other language cell stays empty: we found no printed source for the flour's name in Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil or the rest, so those cells stay blank rather than hold an invented name.

The table's one caveat: it is the flour, not the dal, whose names are listed. IFCT 2017 records the dal's names across India — Chan-ki-dal in Hindi, Kadale bele in Kannada, Sanaga papu in Telugu, Kadalaiparuppu in Tamil and Chane ki dal in Urdu among them — but the same list has no flour column for besan.

Source: USDA FoodData Central record 174288 (English and scientific name only; no Indian-language names in source). — means no name recorded in the source.

Hindi ‘Besan’: Wikipedia: Gram flour.

Both names are correct for the same powder. The USDA FoodData Central record for the flour is titled Chickpea flour (besan) and prints its per-100 g figures — 387 kcal, 22.4 g of protein and 10.8 g of fibre — under that name. Gram flour is the everyday English name. The FSSAI definition is plain: besan is dehusked Bengal gram, ground. Chickpea and Bengal gram are one pulse — the USDA record for whole chickpeas prints the trio together, chickpeas, garbanzo beans, bengal gram — so chickpea flour and gram flour are one flour, and besan is the Hindi word for it. Is gram flour the same as chickpea flour? Yes; the USDA files besan under chickpea flour.

What is besan made of follows from the same definition: the dal, dehusked and milled to a fine powder, with no added colour. Because the flour is a milled dal, it also goes by besan atta and chana atta, and COWBERRY lists both among the other names for its besan. For the numbers behind the name, the gram flour nutrition page carries the full per-100 g table.

Gram flour in Hindi is besan — the name the table above records, and the heading the FSSAI standard itself uses. The dal behind it carries full Indian-language coverage in IFCT 2017: Chan-ki-dal in Hindi, Harabara dal in Marathi, Chana-ni-daad in Gujarati, Cholar dal in Bengali, Kadale bele in Kannada, Sanaga papu in Telugu, Kadalaiparuppu in Tamil, Kadala parippu in Malayalam and Chane ki dal in Urdu. We found no printed source for the flour's names in those languages, so gram flour in Marathi or gram flour in Tamil has no sourced answer here, and this page says so rather than guess.

Besan is also called besan atta; COWBERRY's organic besan, from chickpeas grown in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, lists that name among its other names. The botanical side of the story belongs to the plant, not the powder: the chickpea, Cicer arietinum, the scientific name IFCT prints for the dal and for the whole gram.

Three of these names are one flour; the fourth is something else entirely.

• Gram flour and besan: the same flour — gram flour in English, besan in Hindi. Is gram flour besan? Yes; the difference is only the language of the label.
• Gram flour and chickpea flour: also the same flour. Chickpea and Bengal gram are one pulse, as the USDA's whole-chickpea record prints: chickpeas, garbanzo beans, bengal gram.
• Besan and chana dal flour: besan is dehusked Bengal gram, ground — the dal milled to a powder — so chana dal flour describes the same thing in two more words.
• Graham flour: not a name for besan. None of the names printed for this chickpea flour is graham flour; the two words only look alike.
• Besan and sattu: sattu is Bengal gram that is roasted and then ground, a separate FSSAI standard from raw besan; the two are compared on besan vs sattu.
• Besan and maida: maida is refined wheat flour, not a pulse flour at all; difference between maida and besan covers it.

How to spot the real thing on a shelf: the FSSAI standard requires besan to be free of added colour and of abnormal odours, and the pack should say Bengal gram. For what to cook with it, the besan recipes roundup starts the list.

Besan is a chickpea product. A 2012 review in the British Journal of Nutrition describes chickpea as an important pulse crop grown and consumed all over the world, especially in the Afro-Asian countries. The same review fills in the grain itself: starch is its major storage carbohydrate, followed by dietary fibre; its lipids are low but rich in unsaturated fatty acids such as linoleic and oleic acids; and its protein carries the essential amino acids except the sulphur-containing ones, which cereal grains can supply. COWBERRY's own besan comes from chickpeas grown in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh with cow-based natural farming, stone-ground into flour.

The besan hub ties the whole cluster together: nutrition, benefits, recipes and storage, all on one page.

What is besan called in English?

Chickpea flour, or gram flour. The USDA record for the flour is titled Chickpea flour (besan), and gram flour is the everyday English name. Both names mean the same powder: dehusked Bengal gram, ground. Besan itself is the Hindi word.

What is gram flour in Hindi?

Besan. The FSSAI standard for the flour is titled Besan, and the table above lists besan as its Hindi name. On packs you will also see besan atta. The dal behind it is Chan-ki-dal in Hindi, as IFCT 2017 prints.

Is gram flour and besan same?

Yes. Gram flour is the English name and besan the Hindi one for the same powder — dehusked Bengal gram, ground, with no added colour, per the FSSAI standard. Chickpea flour is a third name for the same thing. Only the language of the label changes.

Is gram flour the same as chickpea flour?

Yes. Chickpea and Bengal gram are one pulse; the USDA's whole-chickpea record prints the pair together as chickpeas, garbanzo beans, bengal gram. So gram flour and chickpea flour are two English names for flour milled from the same gram, and besan is the Hindi name for it.

Is gram flour the same as graham flour?

No. Gram flour is milled Bengal gram — chickpea flour — and graham flour is not one of its names; the two words only look alike on paper; on a pack, check that the flour says Bengal gram.