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Millets: a cereal grain with potent antioxidants and health benefits

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Abstract

Millet grains are small seeded Kharif crop used as food and feed. Due to presence of bioactive compounds and important minerals, millets have their own importance among cereal grains. Finger millet is a mixture of gallic acid; p-hydroxybenzoic acid; gentisic acid; caffeic acid; syringic acid; p-coumaric acid; sinapic acid; salicylic acid; trans-cinnamic acid. Foxtail millet contains gallic acid; p-hydroxybenzoic acid; vanillic; caffeic acid; chlorogenic acid; ferulic acid; sinapic acid and p-coumaric acid. Pearl millet possesses gallic acid; syringic acid; p-coumaric acid, ascorbic acid and ferulic acid. Little millet is rich in gallic acid; p-hydroxybenzoic acid; vanillic; caffeic acid; chlorogenic acid; ferulic acid; sinapic acid and p-coumaric acid. Thermal processing leads to oxidative degradation and depolymerization of bioactive constituents present in millets. Bioactive compounds like ascorbic acid and carotenoids are heat sensitive and could lose their activity upon processing especially thermal processing. Higher temperature resulted in decrease in p-coumaric acid (14.3–3.8 mg 100 g−1), ellagic acid (8.5–4.9 mg 100 g−1), caffeic acid (6.3–2.3 mg 100 g−), gallic acid (224–170 mg 100 g−1), hydroxybenzoic acid (2.3–0.6 mg 100 g−1), catechin (87.2–45.6 mg 100 g−1), ferulic acid (45.4–17.5 mg 100 g−1) and epicatechin (23.9–4.8 mg 100 g−1). Millet extracts contain specific compounds with bioactive properties, including antioxidant activity, the ability to protect DNA, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory and other health-promoting properties. Processing imparts specific flavor, improve texture, taste and shelf life of millets based food products. Millet grains are of great interest because of their agro-industrial importance, high nutritional value and bioactive constituents.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Science & Technology, Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa, India

    Pinderpal Kaur

  2. Department of Biotechnology, Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa, India

    Sukhvinder Singh Purewal & Raj Kumar Salar

  3. Department of Food Science & Technology, Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Technical University, Bathinda, India

    Sukhvinder Singh Purewal & Kawaljit Singh Sandhu

  4. Department of Food Science & Technology, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India

    Maninder Kaur

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  1. Pinderpal Kaur
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Kaur, P., Purewal, S.S., Sandhu, K.S. et al. Millets: a cereal grain with potent antioxidants and health benefits. Food Measure 13, 793–806 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11694-018-9992-0

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