Discussion about future of small grain millets:

Dear friends,
                Now i would like to discuss the importance of our water and rain source resources with our food. The need of this discusstion at this point of time is to think of our agriculture system and the crops we are getting as food. Nowadays rice and wheat contains the major of our food culture. At this point we have to compare how much water is consumed for producing 1kg of rice/ wheat  VS 1kg of small millets, you will be surprised , millets required only one third of water it consumes than rice/wheat. In future we have to practice to have the food which require less water conservation not only farmers side but also for our health.
                 Many small millets have about 50 times more fiber content that rice/wheat and RAGI millets have 30 time more calcium content that rice/wheat. The iron content in rice is negligable when we compare with THINAI AND SAAMAI. Now a days all are searching for tonics, capsules and many more doctors for vitamin tablets and immunity boosters. Instead of this if we practice to take small millets in our food twice in a week, we dont want to stand in doctorshop..

THE IMPORTANCE OF FIBRE IN OUR FOOD:

Nowadays many of the breakfast cereals are projected in the market highlighting FIBRE content. Really it is a must in our daily food habit. Because fibre strengthens our bones, able to act like good immunity booster.
Dietary fiber is defined as plant cell component present as part of diet. Health benefits of dietary fiber are immense. Dietary fiber has the tendency to absorb water and to act as a bulking agent. It facilitates faster transition of food in the gastrointestinal tract, reduces the retention time of feces in the colon. It would bind bile salt and help in increasing the loss of cholesterol and act as a hypo cholestrelemic agent and therefore useful in dietary management of cardiovascular decease. Rice has the lowest percentage of dietary fiber than the other cereals. The dietary fiber of sorgam is 89.2%, pearl millet 122.3% and ragi has 113.5%, varagu has 115% fibre than rice.

STEP BY STEP TO HAVE GOOD FOOD HABITS:
               
             In this section, I want to peoples to know the rice items available in order to avoid the rice and wheat item. Because many people dont know even the names of the fantastic grains, which are very proteineous food. The issue for discussing these grains is to avoid rice, because white rice will slowly increase only carbohydrates in our body. White rice doesnt have specific proteins, minerals etc...
Hence Everyone try to change their food habit now atleast for our future generation. The initial step is to try to add any one of the whole grains in your weekly food. Instead using white rice in cooker just keep the whole grains listed below in cooker and serve hot as like as white rice.
The available grain rice are:
1. Thinai rice (fox tile millet rice)

2. Varagu rice (koda millet rice)

3. Saamai rice (little millet rice)

4. Cholam rice (jowar rice)

5. Kattu kambu rice ( bajra rice)

6. Kudirai vali rice (Barnyard millet rice)
 
so, in this section, i would like to introduce you how to cook THINAI RICE. Lots of dishes can be done using this grain.
The following are the some important links to check :


1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvcrs0xbxd0 , the above link is for thinai arisi adai.


2 .

Millet Rice (Thinai rice)

Thinai rice  (Millet/Foxtail Millet) Birds and bees like it. The hard working farmers in rural India like it. I liked it too. I am talking about the grain - millet
Millet + water + salt = a revelation!
Thinai rice is very tasty and once if you taste, you dont forget to leave. Especially it contains lot of protein, one of my friend is bodybuilder and he use to take regularly in order to gain the muscle.
Once he said me that it has good protein than protein mix available in the market....



Recipe:

1 cup millet ( foxtail millet)
2 cups water
¼ teaspoon of salt or to taste and one table spoon of oil for non sticky

    Just keep this millet with water in the cooker as like white rice. After the whistle comes, open the cooker and serve the rice with any kind of rasam, sambar and ever curd pickle.
its very delicious.
 

Korra Annam with Potato Kurma ~ Our Afternoon Meal Today 
3. Even thinai pongal can be done 
 
Using these millets have lot of advantage, some of them are

• They release sugar slowly – enough time for our body to produce required insulin. This is mainly because the coat of the grain is in tact and we take whole grain and not polished one.

• They are nutritious – well balanced at that – fibre,protein, iron etc.

• They require very little water and can grow in not-so-fertile lands also.
•  
• They are disease and pest resistent

DISCUSSING THE ISSUE OF GRAIN PRODUCTS

Today we are in the world, buys any  health related food product advertise in televisions and internets. The reason for this kind of attitude is , still not to spoil our health. Nowadays people are much looking for good food habits, but they dont know what to eat for healthy living. So, many companies are taking advantage to sell their products as health foods.
In olden days, our ancestors use to do all kind of works without any electrical and electronic home appliances. The root cause for this kind of healthy living is the food habit they used to have.They had whole grains and basins as their main food.Even my grand father was telling me that he used to have morning breakfast as JOWAR RICE only once in the morning and till evening he could able to all work without any tiredness. Also he used to tell me that every week he used to have BAJRA SOUP(koozh) RAGI KAZHI (RICE) THINAI PAYASAM (SWEET ) and many grain  based foods. The grains have good energy and also it increase the resistant power to our body. Even today all the states have home grown tarditional grains. The benefit of the home grown grain is, it grows according to that particular climatic region and hence the grain contains the typical culture of the particular area living people.
Today many social activists are trying to save the food habits used by our ancestors.
for your reference i introduce the biological name of grains: