Ash Gourd Calories & Nutrition Calculator

Raw ash gourd (wax gourd / winter melon) contains 13 kcal per 100g — making it one of the lowest-calorie vegetables in the USDA database. For comparison, cucumber has 15 kcal, celery has 16 kcal, and iceberg lettuce has 14 kcal per 100g. At 96.1% water by weight, ash gourd is essentially edible water with a thin shell of fiber and carbohydrates ^[1].

Cooked ash gourd has 14 kcal per 100g — a negligible 1 kcal increase from boiling. The calorie density is so low that eating an entire cup of cooked cubes (175g) adds only 25 kcal to your daily total. The cooking oil, coconut milk, or sugar in any ash gourd preparation will always vastly exceed the gourd's own calorie contribution.

For food journaling, ash gourd is effectively calorie-invisible. A typical kootu or curry serving using 200g of ash gourd contributes 26–28 kcal from the gourd itself. The dal, oil, and coconut in the dish contribute 80–90% of the total calories. Track those components precisely; approximate the ash gourd weight.

Raw ash gourd has 2.9g dietary fiber per 100g — a surprisingly high fiber density for a vegetable that's 96% water. This places raw ash gourd's fiber content above that of raw cucumber (0.5g), raw tomatoes (1.2g), and even raw zucchini (1.0g) ^[1].

Boiling and draining reduces the fiber to 1.0g per 100g — a 66% loss. This dramatic reduction occurs because ash gourd's fiber is primarily water-soluble pectin and mucilage that dissolves into the cooking water. If you consume the broth or cooking liquid (as in sambar or rasam), some of this fiber is recovered ^[2].

For food journaling, if fiber tracking matters, note that 1 cup of raw ash gourd cubes (132g) provides 3.8g fiber, while the same volume cooked provides only 1.8g. Raw juice preparation retains most of the fiber if pulp is included; strained juice loses it almost entirely.

Raw ash gourd contains 111mg sodium per 100g — a figure that stands out sharply among fresh vegetables. Most raw vegetables contain 1–20mg sodium per 100g. The only common vegetables with comparably high natural sodium are celery (80mg), beet greens (226mg), and Swiss chard (213mg) ^[1].

Cooking reduces the sodium slightly to 107mg per 100g after boiling and draining. For a person consuming 200g of ash gourd in a dish, the gourd alone contributes 214–222mg sodium before any added salt — roughly 10% of the daily recommended limit from the vegetable itself ^[2].

For food journaling, ash gourd's natural sodium content means you may need less added salt than expected. If you're tracking sodium closely, log the ash gourd weight precisely and account for the 111mg/100g baseline. Adding ¼ teaspoon of salt (580mg) to a 200g serving brings the total dish sodium to approximately 800mg.

Agra petha — India's most famous ash gourd preparation — transforms this 13 kcal/100g vegetable into a 250–350 kcal/100g sweet. The sugar syrup crystallization process replaces the gourd's water with sucrose, multiplying the calorie density by 20–25x. A single piece of petha (40g) contains approximately 100–140 kcal, mostly from added sugar ^[3].

By contrast, ash gourd juice (blended raw with water, no sweetener) remains ultra-low-calorie at approximately 6–8 kcal per 100ml if unstrained. Strained juice loses fiber but retains the vitamin C and minerals. A 200ml glass of ash gourd juice has approximately 12–16 kcal.

For food journaling, these are entirely different foods. Log petha as a sugar-based sweet (not as a vegetable), and log ash gourd juice by the ml of unstrained juice. The gourd's own calorie contribution is negligible in both cases — what matters is how much sugar, lime water, or honey is added during processing.

Raw ash gourd contains 0.61mg zinc per 100g — a notable concentration for a gourd family vegetable. For comparison, raw zucchini has 0.32mg, raw cucumber has 0.2mg, and raw bottle gourd (lauki) has 0.7mg. Cooked green peas have 0.63mg per 100g — nearly identical to raw ash gourd ^[1].

One cup of raw ash gourd cubes (132g) provides approximately 0.8mg zinc — about 7% of the daily value. While this makes ash gourd a modest zinc contributor, the absolute amount is meaningful when combined with other zinc-containing foods in a meal.

For nutrition journaling, ash gourd's zinc content is one of the few micronutrients worth logging from this vegetable, alongside its vitamin C (13mg/100g). Most other minerals are present in small amounts. The zinc is relatively stable during cooking, dropping only to 0.59mg per 100g after boiling.