Dr. Sheetal Badyal, Dr. Vikas Tandon
Nutritional security implies awareness and access at affordable cost to balanced diet, safe environment and drinking water and health care outreach. Millets contribute towards balanced diet as well as safe environment.
They are nature’s gift to humankind. Millet cultivation is the mainstay of rain-fed farming on which 60% of Indian farmers depend. They provide food as well as fodder and can be mix-cultivated (polyculture) with pulses and vegetables The advantages of cultivation of these crops include drought tolerance, crop sturdiness, short to medium duration, low labour requirement, minimal purchased inputs, resistance to pests and diseases and are climate change compliant. There are varieties particularly in millet which mature in 60-70 days; yet providing reasonable and assured harvests even under most adverse conditions. India is a store-house of highly valuable genetic variability. Millets sequestrate carbon and thereby reduce the burden of green house gas. Millets have been called nutri-grains since they are rich in micronutrients like minerals and B-complex vitamins. Additionally millets are also rich in health promoting phytochemicals, and can be used as functional foods. Millets in general are rich source of fibre, minerals and B- complex vitamins. Among the millets, pearl millet (Bajra) has the highest content of macronutrients, and micronutrients such as iron, zinc, Mg, P, folic acid and riboflavin. Finger millet (ragi) is an extraordinary source of calcium. Though low in fat content, it is high in PUFA (polyunsaturated fatty acids) It is also rich in essential amino acids, like lysine, threonine etc. High fibre content and presence of some anti-nutritional factors like phytates and tannins in millets affect bioavailability of minerals. Dietary fibre has health benefits like good bowel movement, and reduction in blood cholesterol and sugar.:
Millets are a treasure-trove of micronutrients like B-complex vitamins and minerals whose deficiencies in India are rampant. They also contain fibre and health promoting phytochemicals which function as antioxidants, immune stimulants etc., and thus have potential to mitigate degenerative diseases such as diabetes, CVD, cancer etc. whose incidence is rising in India. This makes millets important component as functional foods. Unfortunately some of these phytochemicals like fibre, phytates and tannins interfere with the bioavailability of micronutrients particularly minerals. Processing can improve the bioavailability of nutrients as well as functionality. Milling, roasting, soaking, malting, germination and fermentation have been found to reduce phytic acid and tannin contents of millets. In recent years, these have been used as foods that promote health through prevention of specific degenerative diseases like diabetes, CVD, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, cataract etc. This effect is due to the presence of health-promoting and bioactive phytochemicals in plant foods. Some of the known nutrients- vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids also have benefits in terms of prevention of degenerative diseases, besides their known functions of preventing nutritional deficiency diseases. Being non-glutinous, millets are safe for people suffering from gluten allergy and celiac disease. They are non-acid forming, and hence easy to digest.
Popping, flaking, expanded grains (murmura type) par -boiling have better shelf life, since heating deactivates lipase. The diabetes preventing effect of millets is primarily attributed to high fibre content. Some antioxidant phenols in millets also tend to have anti-diabetic effect. high fibre content and antioxidants have been shown to have beneficial effect on serum lipid profile besides blood sugar. Some forms of cancer are also prevented by high fibre diets. Millets have potential for protection against age-onset degenerative diseases. As the largest producer of Millets, India can capture world market with appropriate validated functional foods. . In recent years, contemporary food processing technologies such as extrusion cooking for Ready to Eat (RTE) foods and breakfast cereals, pasta and vermicelli-noodles and bakery products, malting & brewing, wet milling for starch preparation are employed for these grains. Commonly used processing technologies are: milling including decortication or seed coat separation and size gradation into semolina and flour, popping, malting, fermentation and cold extrusion. More work is needed to optimize these. Millets are drought, temperature and pest tolerant and hence are grains for the future in an environment of climate change and global warming. Despite these attributes, Millets are losing their pride of place both in terms of production and consumption, for a variety of reasons, including policy initiatives which favour cereals. Though they have not enjoyed technological breakthroughs like the green revolution for cereals, their productivity has increased. Confined to poor lands, productivity is further affected and there is a wide gap between potential productivity and productivity in farmers’ fields.
Unlike cereals, primary processing of millets poses some problems for want of proper machinery, particularly for small and medium scale enterprises. In recent years, a variety of traditional and non-traditional, millet-based processed foods and complementary foods have been developed. These can become income generation activity for women in household industry. Even while commercialization is needed, primary effort should be to see that Millets are consumed by the poor and they are cultivated as mixed/relay cropping with legumes and vegetables in homestead gardens for home consumption to ensure household food and nutrition security. Scientific, technological and behavioural engineering involving convergence of efforts of agriculture scientists, food technologists, home scientists, policy makers, and media is needed to revalorize millets and Govt needs to launch new programmes for the promotion of the Millets’.
The authors are the Scientists of KVK , SKUAST, Jammu
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