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October 26, 2017

27/10/2017: The nutritional importance of coarse cereal grains

by Cliff Spencer, Chairman, Milling4Life

I have recently promoted some lesser-known cereal crops for use by millers and their major milling feedstock supply potential in developing countries

I described the agricultural, environmental and climatic reasons for millers pursuing the development of these feedstocks.

Now to consider their positive and all-important nutritional aspects. Cereal grains consist of three major parts, and different nutrients reside in these parts. There is the bran – the outer layer of the grain containing fibre, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and dietary minerals, the endosperm – the main part of the grain consisting mainly of starch, and the germ – the smallest part of the grain, containing vitamin Ee, folate, thiamine, phosphorus and magnesium.
 


Cereal is typically a low-fat, nutrient-dense food with many essential vitamins and minerals and delivers important nutrients and essential vitamins such as iron, B vitamins and zinc.

Currently, important cereals such as rice, wheat and maize are particularly important to humans because of their role as staple food crops in many areas of the world.

Rice is the most valuable agricultural crop in the world but it is second to maize (corn) in the quantity of cereal products produced.

However coarse grains are food cereal grains other than wheat and rice and they also are used for animal feed and brewing. As previously described these coarse grains are warm-season cereals valued for their food, feed and fodder uses in various parts of the world.

They are largely grown in the semi-arid tropical regions of Asia and Africa; under rain-fed farming systems with little external inputs and with current grain yield levels being low. Coarse cereals include maize, sorghum, oats, barley, pearl millet and other minor millets such as Finger, Kodo, Proso, Foxtail, Little and Barnyard millet.

These grains are rich in dietary energy, vitamins, several minerals (especially micronutrients such as iron and zinc), insoluble dietary and phytochemicals with antioxidant properties.

Indeed, these coarse cereals dubbed as ‘poor man’s crops’, have remained neglected with respect to their appropriate position in the commercialised food system, and the required investment in research and development.

Now with the increasing concerns about adverse changes in environmental quality and its consequent negative effects on food and nutritional security they are demanding industry attention.

Link this with the need for increasing food production per unit resource investment for an ever increasing population, and these coarse grains have good prospects of penetrating the food baskets of a wider range of consumers, both rural and urban, poor and rich and in developed and developing economies.

Research and development on potential uses of these coarse cereal grains is bringing out the potential of these grains for being used as formulated foods and these coarse cereals have of late even been designated as nutricereals.

They are rich in compounds that help against several chronic diseases like ischemic strokes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, obesity and type II diabetes.


Read the full article, HERE.
 

The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.


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