PERSONA THEME
RESEARCH
Can Millets Be the Answer to India’s Nutritional Problems?
NEWSCOPE
RESEARCH
ISSUES
WELL-BEING
TRENDS
Written by DR.
M
GEETIKA A. BATRA
odern India, in spite of technological and industrial progress, is still fighting its battle against “food”, both quantitatively and qualitatively. India is one of the top five countries with respect to adult obesity, childhood obesity, and type-2 diabetes. It is predicted that by 2025, India will rank second in obesity, with the count of obese children over 17 million. The irony of the situation is that India ranks first in under nourishment, constituting 40% of the world’s under weight population. Such extremes of poor health conditions are prevalent because of unhealthy food options in one stratum of society, and scarcity of food in another. Currently wheat and rice constitute the most consumed cereals in India. Wheat cultivation dates back to Indus valley civilization, approximately 5000 years ago. In habitants of the Mohenjo-Daro period used wheat to make bread and porridge. The obsession with wheat was further instigated by the Green Revolution in the 1960s when new higher yielding varieties were introduced to cater to a rapidly growing population. Further more, there have been reports about the origin of rice in India about 35 million years back. In India, rice is mostly consumed in the Southern region and the Northeast, where as Northern-central part is the bread basket of the country. Both these staple cereals are consumed as refined flour and polished rice; and because of their smooth appearance and taste fulness, our traditional grains like Bajra (pearl millet), Jowar (sorghum), Ragi (fingermillet) and Rajgira (amaranth) have taken a back seat. In fact, Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, Father of Green Revolution, himself called millets “orphan crops” as they used to constitute 40% of all the cultivated
grains before the Green Revolution, which dropped to about half immediately after 1965. Although all grains, cereals as well as millets, mostly comprise of starch (~60-65%), however the concentrations of protein, dietary fiber and minerals greatly vary among them. Wheat grains are composed of 70% starch, while rice is 90%. Protein ranges from 13—15% in wheat but is essentially lowest in rice among all available cereals. The fiber content, as well as the minerals composition of both the privileged grains, is also poor. Considering the modern-daysedentary lifestyle, the amount of refined carbohydrates we consume without much physical activity is taking a toll on our health, as is evident by rising malnutrition numbers. Moreover, the sudden release of glucose into the blood stream causes “energy crash” soon after a starchy meal. Thus, we need grains with higherdietary fiber and resistant starch. These slowly digestible nutritional elements provide satiety feeling for a longer period of time, and help prevent constipation by accelerating food movement through the gastrointestinal tract. They also bind to toxins and remove them from the gut, thereby protecting the colon mucosa from cancers. Dietary fibers also reduce serum LDL-cholesterollevels, by binding to cholesterol generated bile salts there by hindering their re-absorption in the colon. Based on all nutritional parameters, millets are far ahead of rice and wheat. Not only are they more resistant to digestion, but also the antioxidants abundantly present in millets scavenge free radicals that cause inflammation in the body. Bajra/Pearl millet is the oldest millet used by our ancestors. It is still a part of regular meals in desert belt of the country like Rajasthan
