Millet Grains: Nutritional Quality, Processing, and Potential Health Benefits

Abstract

In the 21st century, climate changes, water scarcity, increasing world population, rising food prices, and other socioeconomic impacts are expected to generate a great threat to agriculture and food security worldwide, especially for the poorest people who live in arid and subarid regions. These impacts present a challenge to scientists and nutritionists to investigate the possibilities of producing, processing, and utilizing other potential food sources to end hunger and poverty. Cereal grains are the most important source of the world's food and have a significant role in the human diet throughout the world. As one of the most important drought-resistant crops, millet is widely grown in the semiarid tropics of Africa and Asia and constitutes a major source of carbohydrates and proteins for people living in these areas. In addition, because of their important contribution to national food security and potential health benefits, millet grain is now receiving increasing interest from food scientists, technologists, and nutritionists. The aim of this work was to review the recent advances in research carried out to date for purposes of evaluation of nutritional quality and potential health benefits of millet grains. Processing technologies used for improving the edible and nutritional characteristics of millet as well as challenges, limitations, and future perspectives to promote millet utilization as food for a large and growing population are also discussed.

Development of Fermented Corn and Rapoko Blend Instant Porridge

“…Carbohydrate content was shown to increase with increase in the concentration of rapoko in the blend. The increase in carbohydrate content was probably due to the nutritional quality of rapoko over maize and this revealed their mutual supplementation effect (Saleh et al, 2013). The processing technologies applied on corn and rapoko grains like fermentation also have a positive outcome on the nutrient content of the product (Onyango et al, 2004).…”

“…The processing technologies applied on corn and rapoko grains like fermentation also have a positive outcome on the nutrient content of the product (Onyango et al, 2004). Protein content from 0% to 60% rapoko concentrations increases from 6.80 to 11.95% and this is likely to be due to the addition of rapoko flour (which has a higher protein content over corn) in the blend (Saleh et al, 2013). These results showed that the porridges were nutritious in relation to protein as they provide one third of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) from 10-12% as recommended by the World Health Organization (Mbata et al, 2007).…”

“…Nutritional wellbeing is the key component for health and development and it contributes greatly to the human genetic potential (Saleh, 2013). The nutritional status of a community has been acknowledged to signify the development of a nation.…”

“…Millets are known to have a high nutritive value as compared to other cereals such as corn, wheat and rice and their proteins are good sources of the essential amino acid methionine and are limiting in theonine and lysine and they are also good sources of photochemical and micronutrients such as calcium (Saleh et al, 2013), therefore adding value to the nutrition of populations. Rapoko, (Eleusine coracana L) also called finger millet, among the millets, contributes greatly to the human diet especially in Africa and India.…”

“…Rapoko, (Eleusine coracana L) also called finger millet, among the millets, contributes greatly to the human diet especially in Africa and India. It contains nearly 7% protein and like other cereals, finger millet is not rich in amino acids lysine and tryptophan (Singh and Raghuvanshi, 2012) but its protein content is better balanced as compared to all the other millets because it contains more lysine, theonine, and valine (Saleh et al, 2013). Rapoko has good amounts of tryptophan, cystine, methionine and aromatic acids, which are needed for the growth and well being of humans (Michael, n.d) and these amino acids, are deficient in most cereals rendering rapoko a special cereal among the others.…”