Thoroughly modern millets

Millets have been making a lot of noise lately. These are present in most supermarket stores, especially in their 'healthy foods' sections. While quinoa and brown rice have been making their way to food bowls available for lunch or dinner, several chefs and dieticians in India are focusing on traditional millets such as jawar (sorghum), bajra (pearl millet), ragi (finger millet) and jhangora (barnyard) among others. Several cities are also seeing festivals being organised to educate people about millets for being gluten free and rich in minerals, protein, iron, potassium, calcium, vitamin B, magnesium and zinc. Mostly pesticide-free and easily grown in rainfed dryland, they also help in lowering Type 2 diabetes and reduce the risk of heart disease.It makes you wonder why such a rich crop went off the shelf in the first place.

"Millets were written off in agriculture and growing it was considered backward," says an angry Dr Vandana Shiva. The 64-year-old environment activist blames the Green Revolution and the World Bank for limiting our staple diet to rice and wheat. Hyderabad-based Indian Institute of Millets Research director Dr Vilas A Tonapi also agrees that inclusion of high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat during the 1960s Green Revolution made cultivation of these cereals more profitable. "But no such productivity-enhancing genes were available for millets. So wheat spread to non-conventional areas of eastern and southern India and rice cultivation to western India, further boosted by the availability of fertilisers at a subsidy and government schemes introduced to provide rice and wheat at highly subsidised prices. Coupled with this, was their inclusion in the Public Distribution System (PDS) through a network of fair price shops, ensuring the complete disappearance of millets from all kitchens," says Dr Tonapi.

All this led to a gradual shrinking of area under millet cultivation till the late 80s, and significantly post that due to expansion of area for new crops like soybean, cotton and maize. Millets, in this period, survived in few kitchens – either of the older generation that vouched for millet-based diets like jawar/bajra roti, or tribes resistant to changes in diet and lifestyle. "Kodo millet and little millet in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh; finger millet in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand; and barnyard millet in Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu are some that continue to be cultivated and consumed in tribal areas," says Dr Tonapi. Taste and convenience of cooking also added to the shift.

It wasn't until the urban and semi-urban population that grew up on rice and wheat began facing lifestyle disorders that the attention returned to millets about 3 - 4 years ago, with ragi leading the way. "Ragi always had some demand, but picked up when companies started making products with it. Most people had forgotten or didn't know how to prepare millets and many didn't like the taste till products like ragi biscuits made millets easier on the palate. Of course, most brands mix millets with wheat and other ingredients," says Mumbai-based food writer Vikram Doctor. But are these packaged offerings healthy? DHAN Foundation's M Karthikeyan believes not. "While they've created awareness about millets, they bring no change due to the negligible percentage of millets used. For a real difference in health, millets must be consumed as the main ingredient in the diet as roti or rice".

A programme leader for Rainfed Farming Development, Karthikeyan, also points out that though millets have an appeal with certain sections of our population "their overall production has been decreasing barring in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Except in few states, the acreage has reduced too – from 36.3 mn ha in 1955 - 56 to 17 mn ha by 2011. Tamil Nadu has seen a slight pick-up in the last five years, mainly for jawar," he adds.

Today, there are festivals promoting millets, but they aren't uniform across the country and at present sufficient production and supply of millets doesn't exist to cater meaningfully to any government programme for mass consumption. This means "even if all food grains are available at `1 - `3/kg, the common man will choose rice and wheat over millets because s/he is still oriented towards these cereals and is not aware/concerned about nutrition from millets," says Dr Tonapi.

But Dr Shiva believes that we will eventually be forced to rely on millets due to climate and water distress. And to support it, Mumbai-based food writer and consultant Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal suggests we give our culinary heritage more cognizance. "In Uttarakhand, mandua is eaten in rotis, jhangora in paleu or chencha - a savoury Garhwali porridge cooked in buttermilk and in Gujarat and Maharashtra, jawar and bajra are still consumed as part of the main diet. Sama (samak) is prepared during fasts and daliya/lapsi is also a regular feature. It's up to us cooks and chefs to keep indigenous foods alive."

Besides reviving traditional dishes, Ghildiyal believes we must also adopt modern ones as our tastebuds and food at home has evolved too. "I prepare a jawar-bajra porridge, green mango and jawar salad, and savoury as well as sweet millet-buddha bowls. Millets work in any dish that has rice, flour or grains. They can be used as thickeners in soups and gravies, and as substitutes in porridge, upma, pulao or risotto. Millet-based cakes and muffins come out really well too!"