10 ways to use millets everyday!

 

This blog is written by Nutritionist Dr. Vibhusha Jambhekar.

It is said that eating smart is an art. Millets now a days are becoming popular in the young generation for their incredible health benefits. Millets are small-seeded grains from hardy plants which are capable of growing in areas where there are low rainfall and poor irrigation facilities. Millets are one of the oldest foods known to humans. They are the healthiest foods known specially in a world where we are trying to lose weight, balance our hormones and fight infections. Millets are healthier, easy to digest and more nutritious than our polished rice, chemically grown wheat or refined grains. Millets are the healthy carbs which can be included in our diets everyday for their enormous health benefits. My research on millets began with me looking for new healthy recipes to make every day! They not only helped me enrich our diet but also added the element of variety. I love experimenting with them, using them for making various cuisines like Maharashtrian, south Indian, from continental to making Indian desserts! They inspired me to even make healthy snacks and add them to our basket of offerings (link given below).

Let us know more about these small wonders!

Health benefits of millets:

• Nutrient rich: they are rich in B vitamins and minerals both of which are required for better energy levels and increasing strength
• Diabetes control: millets are high in fibre and low in starch. Hence they help in stabilizing

blood sugar levels

• Weight loss: high fibre content of millets help you feel full for a long time which can prevent over eating
• Digestion: as millets are the longest known cereals, they have been used by generations, hence our guts are familiar to them can digest them with much better efficiency than the modern grains (quinoa, chia seeds, oats) which are foreign or genetically modified or chemically grown.

How to include millets in diet:

Millets come in a lot of varieties and colours! They cook quite fast. Each millet has its own colour, flavour and texture.

There many ways in which you can use millets for every day cooking:

• Millet flours: Bajra and jowar have long been used in Indian cuisine to make rotis. Along with these millets, flours of other millets like ragi, kodo millet, barnyard millet can be used to make Laddoos, dosas, roti, biscuits, cake etc.
• Whole millets: Jowar, bajra and ragi are millets which have a tough outside cover and hence have a chewy texture when cooked whole. However millets like foxtail, barnyard, little, kodo when cooked are quite soft and can even be used as a substitute for rice! They can make a wholesome one dish meal for your dinner when combined with vegetables, sprouts or dals. You can make salads with cooked millets. Whole millets can even be fermented to make idlis!
• Millet based foods: Healthy snacking and conscious shopping also go a long way in nurturing our health. While buying packaged foods, choose millet breads, baked millet chips or millet based sweets.  You can even check our signature multi millet noodles with NO msg tastemaker and multi millet energy bites here!

Do write to me for your feedback and suggestions!