In today’s age of high decibel, one term is gaining grounds and that is millet. Promoted by the Government of India with the Hon’ble Prime Minister himself espousing its cause, millets are gaining popularity slowly and steadily.

But it is important to know what are millets and about their origins. To quote Wikipedia, “they are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most millets belong to the tribe Paniceae. Millets are important crops in the semiarid tropics of Asia and Africa, especially in India, Mali, Nigeria, and Niger, with 97% of production in developing countries.”

Millets sometimes include “the widely cultivated sorghum; apart from that, pearl millet is the most commonly cultivated of the millets. Finger millet, proso millet, and foxtail millet are other important crop species. Millets may have been consumed by humans for about 7,000 years and potentially had a pivotal role in the rise of multi-crop agriculture and settled farming societies,” Wikipedia states.

Millets are small-grained, annual, warm-weather cereals hailing from the grass family. They can withstand extreme conditions and share same nutrient conditions with major other similar cereals.

In India Little millet (Panicum sumatrense) was domesticated around 5000 BCE in the Indian subcontinent and Kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum) around 3700 BCE. Various millets have made their entry into Yajurveda texts like foxtail millet (priyaṅgu), Barnyard millet (aṇu) and black finger millet (śyāmāka). On the initiative of Indian Government in 2018, the Food and Agriculture Organization adjudged the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets.

Millets have high nutritional content, are gluten free and are in dietary fibre and others.

Purely organic, millets can be used in versatility in cooking – in other words they are versatile grains and are easy to cook.

Geographically, millets are comfortable on poor, dry infertile soils and can be relied upon in these inclement conditions. This is the reason why millet production is of high demand in nations around Sahara Desert in Africa.

So, next time you think of staying fit and healthy, go for millets which will never let you down.