Overview
About Pigeon peas
Pigeon peas are effectively two foods under one name: the green gandules sold fresh, frozen or tinned for arroz con gandules, and the dried hulled split pulse sold as toor or arhar dal, the base of sambar and everyday Indian dal.
Both forms rate at the top for galacto-oligosaccharides and poorly for SIBO, and both are high in nickel and lectins with moderate salicylate and oxalate. The point worth knowing is that splitting and hulling the dal, which is what lets it cook in twenty minutes without soaking, removes the fibrous seed coat but not the fermentable sugars, because those are stored in the body of the seed. Dal is not the low-FODMAP legume it is widely assumed to be.
Sensitivities
How Pigeon peas scores
Watch for
What trips people up
- Top GOS rating in both forms; quick-cooking split dal is no lower in fermentable sugars than the whole green pea, because hulling takes off the skin while the oligosaccharides sit in the seed itself
- Rated poor for SIBO, and dal tends to be eaten daily rather than occasionally, so frequency matters here as much as portion size
- Toor dal is often sold oily, coated in edible oil to keep pests out during storage; wash it in warm water until the water runs clear before cooking, both to shift the coating and to remove surface starch
- Tinned gandules usually arrive in seasoned brine, and the arroz con gandules around them brings sofrito onion and garlic fructans plus cured pork, so the peas are only one part of what you actually logged
- High in nickel and lectins; a pressure cooker takes dal past boiling point and handles the lectins along the way, whereas a long low simmer from raw may never get hot enough
Diet fit
Where it fits
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FAQ
Common questions about Pigeon peas
Is toor dal low FODMAP?
No, and the assumption that it is comes from a misunderstanding of what splitting does. Hulling and splitting the pigeon pea removes the tough outer skin, which is why dal cooks so quickly, but the galacto-oligosaccharides are stored in the cotyledon, the seed body that remains. Toor dal rates at the top of the scale for GOS. A small portion, a long soak with the water discarded, and hing or ginger instead of onion and garlic all help at the edges.
Are gandules and toor dal the same thing?
They are the same plant, Cajanus cajan, at two different stages. Gandules are the immature green peas, picked soft and sold fresh, frozen or tinned for Caribbean rice dishes. Toor dal is the same pea left to mature, dried, hulled and split for South Asian cooking. The green form is milder in flavour, but neither is meaningfully lower in fermentable carbohydrate than the other.
Why does toor dal need washing before cooking?
Much of the toor dal on sale is the oily type, deliberately coated with edible oil so it stores well and resists pests. Rinsing in warm water several times until the water runs clear takes that coating off along with loose starch. It is a storage practice rather than a trigger issue, but people who find dal heavy sometimes notice the difference, and soaking afterwards and discarding the soak water genuinely does remove some of the fermentable sugars.
Are pigeon peas a problem for systemic nickel allergy?
Yes. Pigeon peas are high in nickel like other pulses, and because dal is often a daily staple the cumulative exposure is larger than for a bean eaten once a week. Chicken, cabbage and carrot are low-nickel foods that can fill out the same meal while you test whether nickel is driving your skin symptoms.
References
Read the background
Ratings reflect the Triggerbites ingredient database and may vary with portion size and preparation.