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BACKGROUND: Pearl millet flour is highly susceptible to rancidity during storage. Urbanization has created a demand for pearl millet flour with longer shelf-life and short cooking time. To try to prevent rancidity and pre-cook the flour, pearl millet grain was subjected to the thermal treatments of toasting, boiling, and toasting then boiling.

Digestion of starch in humans starts in the mouth and progresses to the small intestine. A thorough understanding of the progression of digestion, of consequence to glycemic and possibly insulinemic responses, requires a better characterization of the digestion products along the gut -products that are the substrates in the subsequent hydrolysis by sucrase-isomaltase and maltase-glucoamylase. This submission focuses on the first step of digestion, i.e., impact of human salivary amylase on the structure of hydrolysis products obtained from cooked starch. Starch was cooked at 1:0.7 (T0.7) or 1:2 (T2) starch:water ratios. To remove the effect of granular structure, starch was also dispersed using DMSO (TD) prior to amylase treatment. Cooked and dispersed starches were subjected to salivary amylase at conditions mimicking oral digestion. All samples gave rise to different and complex mixtures of hydrolysates with broad size-distributions as measured by gel-permeation chromatography (GPC). Following hydrolysis, the smallest dextrins (DP <30) constituted 35% in TD and only $20% in both T0.7 and T2. Cooking appeared to protect amylose molecules from hydrolysis with less hydrolysis in T0.7. These results show that the amount of water present during processing of starch affects structures of salivary amylase hydrolysates, which potentially impact on glucose homeostasis.

Background and objectives The use of malted sorghum and pearl millet in the production of traditional foods and beverages is ubiquitous in Africa and India. However, there is limited industrial production and little data on the phenolic content and quality of pearl millet and sorghum malts of different varieties. Therefore, this study investigated the proximate content, malt quality, and phenolics of pearl millet (Okashana 2, Kantana, and Kangara) and sorghum (Macia and a landrace referred to as Red sorghum) varieties. Findings Malting increased the protein in all the varieties, except for Kangara. Germinative energies were >97% for all varieties, except for Red sorghum. Malt quality (reducing sugars, free amino nitrogen, and β‐amylase activity) was highest for Macia followed by Kantana. All pearl millet varieties and Macia had no condensed tannins. The total phenolic content and radical scavenging capacity decreased after malting for all the varieties. Conclusions Macia and Kantana can be candidates for industrial malting for brewing nonalcoholic beverages and opaque beers. Kantana and Red sorghum had higher amounts of phenolic compounds and can potentially be vectors of delivering phenolics into human diets. Significance and novelty This study investigated the phenolic content and quality of malts of different pearl millet and sorghum varieties, which can potentially be used to brew particularly low‐alcohol beverages.

Starch is a major part of our diet. Food processing determines the physicochemical properties of starch in processed foods. An understanding of such properties is important in the development of strategies to modulate desirable textural attributes as well as the digestibility of starch in foods such as baked and extruded products. This review summarises the molecular interactions that occur during gelatinization and retrogradation of starch molecules studied using starch‐water systems focusing on those with starch concentrations of 60–150% db relevant to baked and extruded foods. Little information exists on effects of starch concentration on digestibility and polymer conformations and structures of processed starch in concentrated systems.

Omalovu is a popular traditional opaque beer in Namibia. It is made from malted sorghum or pearl millet grown in prevailing semi‐arid conditions. It has a short shelf life when stored at ambient conditions. It is brewed domestically and consumed within a day. The quality of ingredients, processing conditions and physicochemical characteristics of omalovu are not well understood. Like many traditional African beers, there is little or no documentation of the method used to brew omalovu. This review considers the production of wort from sorghum malt and pearl millet grains and subsequent fermentation to produce omalovu. Opportunities to improve the quality of omalovu are discussed. This may spur the development and growth of breweries to use locally grown sorghum or pearl millet to produce opaque beer. © 2018 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

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