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Background: Under nutrition is a condition due to insufficient intake of energy and nutrients to meet an individual’s needs to maintain good health. Cereals and millets based supplementary foods represents good source of essential nutrients. Recently, millets are tagged as nutri-cereals and its health promoting benefits are attracting consumers worldwide. The current study was aimed to develop millet based ready-to-use composite mix and to evaluate its quality in terms of usage in various traditional foods and shelf life. Methods: RTU composite mix was developed using locally available cereals, millets, pulses and oilseeds. The nutrient composition of developed mix was analyzed. The traditional region specific foods namely Dose, roti and Mudde (Ragi ball) was prepared and subjected for sensory evaluation. Further mix was stored up to three months at room temperature and evaluated for microbial load, moisture, free fatty acid and peroxide value. Result: Protein, fat, carbohydrate and energy content of the mix were 18.5g, 9.56g, 58.21g and 393.24 kcal per 100 g respectively. Roti was best accepted (7.63), followed by mudde (7.50) and dose (7.03). Free Fatty Acid (FFA) was increased from 1.08 per cent to 1.56 per cent oleic acid, whereas peroxide value (PV) was increased from 7.46 to 9.35 mEq O2/ Kg of oil during storage. Total bacterial count (TBC) was increased from 4.5 X 102 to 8.1 X 103. The developed RTU mix which has nutritional potential needs to be popularized to address under nutrition and for overall good health of the society.

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The present study was carried out with the objectives to assess Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) of rural farm women on nutrition along with personal, socio economic profile. A total of 200 rural farm women from five villages of Shidlaghatta block, Chickballapur district, Karnataka, India were selected purposively for the study as Chikkaballapur district falls in the Eastern dry climatic zone and about 76% of the net sown area is under rainfed condition. Random sampling technique was used for the selection of the respondents. The data on socio-economic status, personnel characteristics and nutritional Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of the subjects were collected through a pre tested questionnaire. Study results reveals that 44.5% of the rural farm women belongs to middle age, 28.0% had high school education followed by 24.0% illiterate. Majority (93.0%) are married, most (63.5%) of them have agriculture as main occupation, More than half (53.0%) belongs to nuclear family, 47.5% have small family, nearly three fourth (69.0%) have 2-4 earners in the family. About 53.5% have marginal land holdings followed by 27.5% small, 65.0% belong to medium family income, 65.5% had medium mass media exposure, and 70.5% had medium level of extension contact. More than one third (34.5 %) of the rural farm women had high knowledge, followed by low (33.5%) and medium (32.0%). Thirty six percent had less favorable attitude towards nutrition, whereas 34.0% had favorable attitude and 30.0% had more favorable attitude. In case of nutrition practice 40.0% had poor practice, 35.5% had fair practice, and 24.5% had good practice. From present study it is concluded that there was more knowledge of rural farm women on nutritional aspects, less favorable attitude and poor practice of nutrition. Hence, intervention strategies like promotion of Nutri-gardens in Schools, Households and the rural Community, promotion of Nutri-sensitive crops or biofortified crops to address the malnutrition, promotion of Nutrition Thali through integrated farming system model, Awareness programmes or modules to educate the farm families for cultivation of nutri crops or bio-fortified crops and their nutritional importance and Nutritional deficiencies and its prevention through ICT, skill trainings for development of value added products or Nutrification of traditional recipes, encourage farm families to develop value added products and establish microenterprises to achieve economic security, convergence with all line departments (Women and Child welfare, Agriculture, Horticulture, Fisheries, livestock departments, health department etc.) for achieving the food, nutrition and health security of rural farm women.

Millets are good source of nutrients such as fiber, minerals and b-complex vitamins and their regular consumption helps in reducing non communicable diseases. Hence, millets were used in the preparation of diabetic mix and a study was conducted to evaluate the shelf life of millet based diabetic mix.  Parameters such as moisture, free fatty acid, peroxide value and microbial load were assessed for a period of 90 days. Significant increase in moisture, free fatty acid and peroxide value was observed at different storage period, however free fatty acid and peroxide values were in the acceptable range. Bacterial count throughout the storage period was within the safe level, whereas presence of mold and E-coli was not detected during storage period. Above findings revealed that the developed diabetic mix can be stored up to 90 days.