Nutritional and functional roles of millets—A review

Abstract

The available cultivable plant‐based food resources in developing tropical countries are inadequate to supply proteins for both human and animals. Such limition of available plant food sources are due to shrinking of agricultural land, rapid urbanization, climate change, and tough competition between food and feed industries for existing food and feed crops. However, the cheapest food materials are those that are derived from plant sources which although they occur in abundance in nature, are still underutilized. At this juncture, identification, evaluation, and introduction of underexploited millet crops, including crops of tribal utility which are generally rich in protein is one of the long‐term viable solutions for a sustainable supply of food and feed materials. In view of the above, the present review endeavors to highlight the nutritional and functional potential of underexploited millet crops. Practical applications Millets are an important food crop at a global level with a significant economic impact on developing countries. Millets have advantageous characteristics as they are drought and pest‐resistance grains. Millets are considered as high‐energy yielding nourishing foods which help in addressing malnutrition. Millet‐based foods are considered as potential prebiotic and probiotics with prospective health benefits. Grains of these millet species are widely consumed as a source of traditional medicines and important food to preserve health.

Nutritional, Functional Role of Kodo Millet and its Processing: A Review

“…Minor millets includes Barnyard millet (Echinochloa spp. ), Kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum), little millet (Panicum sumatrense), Guinea millet (Brachiaria deflexa), and Browntop millet (Urochloa ramose/Brachiaria ramose/ Panicum ramosum) (Chinchole et al, 2017;ICRISAT, 2017;Yang et al, 2012, Nithiyanantham et al, 2019. Millets are small annual grains of cereals seed.…”

“…It contributes about 50% area and 35% production of total millet in the country (Bhat et al, 2017;Balasubramanian, 2013;Devi et al, 2014). It is monocot crop and smaller size seeds, 1.5 mm in width, 2 mm in length and light brown to dark gray in color and it is covered in a husk which is hard to remove (Nithiyanantham et al, 2019). Kodo millet is well known for the highest drought resistance among all minor millets and said to produce good yield with in less growing period i.e.…”

“…Millets grains are good sources of polyphenols (Chethan, 2008). The important group of phenolic compounds are gallic acid, tannins, gentisic acid, protocatechuic acid, caffeic acid, vanillic acid, syringic acid, ferulic acid, para coumaric acid, transcinnamic acid, and 5-n-alkyl-resorcinols which are found in all types of millet grains (Bellato et al, 2013;Pradeep and Sreerama, 2018;Nithiyanantham et al, 2019). Many phenolic compounds have the properties to scavenge free radicals and reduce ROs which leads to prevent and treat the disease caused by free radicals (Chandrasekara and Shahid 2011;Nithiyanantham et al, 2019).…”

“…The various research groups have proved that millet flavonoids have many therapeutic properties and shown wider effect against abnormalities like inflammation, cancer, hypertension, diuresis, and pain (Sarita, and Singh. 2016;Nithiyanantham et al, 2019).…”

CropPAL for discovering divergence in protein subcellular location in crops to support strategies for molecular crop breeding

“…The rising demand for quantities of major crops such as maize, rice, wheat and soy are threatening to overtake the projected improvements in yield by 2050 (Ray et al , 2013). There is also an increasing demand for plant‐derived protein in order to reduce the amount of animal‐derived protein in the human diet, which poses breeding challenges due to the negative correlation of increased plant yield and protein content (Nithiyanantham et al , 2019). This creates a critical demand for finding new ways to improve yields for a diverse range of food crops that can provide sufficient nutrients in different regions of the world (Henchion et al , 2017).…”