Millet

Millets are annual grasses that vary from knee-high to over three metres tall, with seeds borne in spikes, panicles or finger-like heads. The grains are small, round or oval, and may be pale yellow, white, grey, red or brown. Pearl millet, finger millet, foxtail millet, proso millet and barnyard millet are the main kinds. The flavour of the cooked grain is mild, slightly sweet and nutty, and the texture ranges from fluffy to sticky. Millets are sold as whole grain, flour, flakes and puffed grain, as well as in bird seed mixes, and are widely used for porridge and flat breads.

Different millets were domesticated independently in several regions. Foxtail and proso millet were cultivated in northern China more than 8,000 years ago, while pearl millet was domesticated in the Sahel region of West Africa, and finger millet in East Africa and the Ethiopian highlands. Several small millets of South Asia, such as kodo millet and little millet, were domesticated in India. The English word millet comes from the Old French millet, a diminutive of mil, deriving from the Latin milium, a name for millet itself.

Millets were among the earliest cultivated crops of Asia and Africa and long served as staple foods for people living in dry regions where wheat and rice did poorly. In ancient China, foxtail millet fed the Neolithic farming communities along the Yellow River before rice and wheat became dominant in some areas. In Africa, pearl millet and sorghum fed Sahelian civilisations, and finger millet was a food and a brewing grain for beer across eastern and southern Africa.

Millets spread across Eurasia in prehistory, reaching Europe by the Bronze Age, where they were eaten as porridge. Over time, higher-yielding crops such as wheat, rice and maize displaced millets from many regions, and they came to be regarded as poor people's food. In recent decades interest has revived, driven by their tolerance of heat and drought, their usefulness in climate-resilient farming and their gluten-free nature. India, Niger, Nigeria and China are leading producers, and the United Nations declared 2023 the International Year of Millets to encourage their use.

Millet is cooked whole as a pilaf or porridge, ground into flour for flat breads such as roti and bhakri in India, and stiff porridges such as ugali in parts of Africa. Finger millet flour makes ragi mudde and fermented drinks, and the grain is malted for beer in many African countries. Puffed and flaked millet is used in breakfast cereals. Whole millet is a common component of birdseed, and the stalks serve as animal fodder and thatching. In gluten-free baking, millet flour is mixed with other flours for texture.

Millets provide complex carbohydrates, fibre, B vitamins and minerals such as magnesium, phosphorus and, in finger millet, notable calcium. Whole-grain millet is naturally free of gluten, so it is often eaten by people with coeliac disease, provided it is not contaminated during processing. Millets contain phytic acid and some polyphenols that can reduce mineral absorption, but soaking, sprouting and fermenting reduce these. Observational and small trials suggest that replacing refined grains with millets may help blood sugar control, though evidence remains limited.