Jaggery in pregnancy: is it safe, how much, and when to avoid it

Yes, in small amounts, counted as sugar. The Dietary Guidelines for Indians from ICMR-NIN name jaggery, along with table sugar and honey, as an added sugar, and their diet chart for pregnant women says sugar may be eaten but must be restricted to 25 to 30 g a day, with added sugar below 5 percent of the day's energy. The same guidelines say there is no need to avoid any specific food because of wrong food beliefs and taboos. The WHO recommendations on antenatal care, summarised in the last section, do not mention jaggery or sugar at all.

Three things are worth keeping straight. First, jaggery is about 85 percent carbohydrate, and being unrefined does not take it out of the added-sugar group. Second, its minerals are real but small at the amounts anyone actually eats. Third, if you have been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, jaggery counts as sugar in your meal plan and is not a free food; the section on what to avoid covers this. For what gur is, its names and its everyday uses, see the jaggery guide; everything here is about pregnancy.

Per 100 g, IFCT 2017 gives jaggery 354 kcal, 84.9 g carbohydrate, 1.85 g protein and almost no fat. The minerals that get talked about are iron at 4.63 mg, calcium at 107 mg, magnesium at 115 mg and potassium at 488 mg per 100 g, with 14.4 mcg of folate.

Nobody eats 100 g of gur in a day, though, and a 10 g piece, the size that goes into a cup of tea, is the honest unit. That piece gives about 35 kcal, 8.5 g of carbohydrate, 0.46 mg of iron and 10.7 mg of calcium, with 1.4 mcg of folate. Set against what pregnancy asks for each day, those are small numbers: the iron in a piece of gur is a fraction of a day's need and a much smaller fraction of what the daily iron and folic acid supplement provides. Jaggery is not an iron supplement, and it should never stand in for one.

What the table cannot show is how the iron behaves. It is plant iron, and the ICMR-NIN guidelines rate the bioavailability of iron from plant foods as poor, against good for the iron in meat, fish and poultry. Vitamin C-rich fruit such as guava, orange or lemon, eaten in the same meal, improves its absorption; tea does the opposite, because it binds dietary iron. The full per-100 g breakdown and the glycemic index discussion are on the jaggery calories page.

Per 100 g raw, edible portion. Composition: IFCT 2017 (ICMR-NIN). — means not reported. These are average values for the food; the label on a pack gives the values for that product.

Watch the amount, not the type. Because the ICMR-NIN guidelines group jaggery, table sugar and honey together as added sugars, gur comes out of the same 25 to 30 g a day that their pregnancy diet chart allows for sugar; it does not get an allowance of its own. A 10 g piece is about 35 kcal, and two pieces, about 71 kcal, take up most of that allowance before anything else sweet is counted. For overweight pregnant women the same guidelines say added sugars should be avoided.

Ways it fits naturally

• In tea: gur ki chai made the jaggery tea way, with the flame off and the tea strained before the gur goes in, which makes the milk less likely to split. Watch the tea as well as the gur: ICMR-NIN advises pregnant women to cut down on caffeinated drinks and to keep tea away from mealtimes and the iron tablet.
• In porridge or kheer: a spoon of jaggery powder stirred into ragi, oats, dalia or kheer once the pan is off the heat.
• With a meal: a small piece after lunch, rather than nibbling through the day, keeps the portion easy to see.
• In sweets made at home: til ke laddu and peanut chikki use jaggery as the binder, so you know how much is in each piece.

Count everything sweet against that one allowance: the gur in your tea, a til laddu, a spoon of honey in milk and a piece of mithai all come out of it. On a day with a festival sweet, leave the jaggery out.

Every sweetener in an Indian kitchen is mostly sugar; the differences are in what comes along with it.

• Jaggery: unrefined, so it keeps its molasses and, with it, the modest iron, calcium, magnesium and potassium listed above. Its caramel flavour is the main reason to choose it.
• White sugar: table sugar, which ICMR-NIN describes as a refined sugar with no vitamins or minerals, so it brings sweetness and calories and nothing else. It is allowed in pregnancy within the same small limit, but there is no reason to prefer it over gur. The full comparison is on jaggery vs sugar.
• Honey: on the same ICMR-NIN list of added sugars as gur and table sugar, so a spoon of honey comes out of the same small allowance.
• Dates and dried fruit: their sugar is naturally present in the fruit rather than added, which is the line the ICMR-NIN guidelines draw between the two, and the same guidelines list dry fruits among good sources of iron. They are still sweet, and with gestational diabetes they count in the meal plan like the rest.
• Sweets and mithai: the sweetener is only part of the load; the ghee, khoya and refined flour bring calories of their own on top of the gur or sugar.

The short version: jaggery is sugar with more flavour and a trace of minerals, not a different category. If you enjoy the taste, use it in place of sugar and keep the total sweet load small. If you are eating it only for the iron, stop, and eat the iron-rich foods and take the supplement instead; those do the job that a piece of gur cannot. Is jaggery good in pregnancy? As a sweetener, yes; as a source of iron, no.

• Using jaggery in place of your iron and folic acid tablets. A piece of gur gives 0.46 mg of iron, while the WHO and the ICMR-NIN both recommend a daily iron and folic acid supplement in pregnancy. Eat gur for taste, take the tablet for iron.
• Jaggery on top of a normal diet. Swapping only helps if jaggery replaces another sweetener. Added on top, 354 kcal per 100 g is the same weight-gain arithmetic as sugar.
• Ignoring a gestational diabetes diagnosis. Once blood sugar is being managed, gur, sugar, honey and dates all count as carbohydrate in the meal plan your dietitian sets. Some women can keep a small piece within the plan; others cannot. Follow the plan, not the folk wisdom that gur is exempt.
• Gur that looks or smells wrong. Visible mould, a sour or fermented smell, or a wet, sticky surface are reasons to throw a block out; the ICMR-NIN guidelines ask for extra care with food safety in pregnancy. Store jaggery airtight in a cool, dry place.
• Jaggery that says nothing about how it was made. Some packs state that the jaggery was made without chemical clarifying agents, bleaching or sulphur; in pregnancy, choose one that does. How is jaggery made explains the process and the household chalk test FSSAI publishes for jaggery.
• Late-night sweets. A piece of gur at bedtime, after a full dinner, is an easy way to go over the day's sugar limit without noticing.

The WHO recommendations on antenatal care (2016) say three things that matter here. Pregnant women should get counselling on healthy eating and on keeping physically active, to stay healthy and to avoid gaining too much weight. They should take a daily iron and folic acid supplement. And raised blood sugar first found during pregnancy should be classified as gestational diabetes or as diabetes in pregnancy; the remarks add that care for gestational diabetes usually starts with nutritional counselling and exercise, followed by medicines if needed.

Nothing in that advice singles out jaggery. In a normal pregnancy it is a sweetener to enjoy in small amounts; with gestational diabetes it is a sugar to count. If you are unsure which applies to you, or you have anaemia, a high pregnancy weight or a family history of diabetes, take this page along and talk to your doctor or dietitian.

Is jaggery good for pregnancy?

As a sweetener in small amounts, yes; as a health food, no. Jaggery gives 354 kcal per 100 g, about the same as sugar, plus small amounts of iron and calcium that do not add up to much in a 10 g piece. Use it in place of sugar, not on top of it, and if you have gestational diabetes count it as sugar in your meal plan.

Can pregnant women eat jaggery?

Yes, in small amounts that replace other sugar: a piece in tea, a spoon in porridge, a laddu now and then. The WHO antenatal care recommendations name no sweetener; they ask for healthy eating and healthy weight gain overall. The ICMR-NIN diet chart is more specific, with a sugar limit of 25 to 30 g a day for a pregnant woman of normal weight and no added sugar for one who is overweight.

How much jaggery can I eat in a day during pregnancy?

No more than the day's sugar allowance, which the ICMR-NIN diet chart for pregnancy sets at 25 to 30 g and which gur shares with table sugar, honey and sweets. Two 10 g pieces, about 71 kcal, use up most of it. Overweight women are advised to avoid added sugars altogether, and with gestational diabetes your dietitian sets the amount.

Does jaggery increase iron levels in pregnancy?

Not in any amount you would eat. Jaggery has 4.63 mg iron per 100 g, so a 10 g piece gives 0.46 mg of plant iron, the kind the ICMR-NIN guidelines describe as less available to the body than iron from meat, fish and poultry. Pregnancy iron comes from the daily iron and folic acid supplement your antenatal clinic gives, and from iron-rich foods; gur is a sweetener that happens to carry a trace.

Is jaggery safe in the first trimester?

Yes, in the same small amounts as at any other stage. Neither the ICMR-NIN guidelines nor the WHO antenatal recommendations single out jaggery in early pregnancy, and ICMR-NIN adds that pregnant women need not give up foods because of food taboos. If nausea makes sweet things hard to keep down, skip it; for nausea the same guidelines suggest small, frequent meals.

Can I eat jaggery if I have gestational diabetes?

Only within the meal plan your dietitian has set. Jaggery is about 85 percent carbohydrate, and the ICMR-NIN guidelines class it as an added sugar alongside table sugar and honey; its minerals do not change that. Some plans allow a small piece with a meal, others do not. Gur gets no exemption for being unrefined, so before it goes back on your plate, talk to your doctor or dietitian.

Is jaggery tea safe during pregnancy?

In moderation, yes, though the tea needs more watching than the jaggery. A cup sweetened with 10 g of jaggery, two teaspoons of powder, is about 35 kcal. The ICMR-NIN guidelines say too much caffeine from tea and coffee should be avoided in pregnancy, and that tea binds dietary iron, so drink it well away from meals and the iron and folic acid tablet. The jaggery tea recipe stirs the gur in off the heat, after straining.