Redesigning traditional grains: a functional approach to protein quality using Kodo millet and chickpeas

Diversifying staple diets with nutritionally dense crops like millets offers a viable strategy to combat hidden hunger and undernutrition. Studies suggest that including coarse cereals like millets can compensate for amino acid deficiencies. Kodo millet is rich in essential amino acids such as lysine, threonine, valine, and sulfur-containing amino acids, with a leucine-to-isoleucine ratio of approximately 2.0. Therefore, the present investigation was carried out to formulate and nutritionally evaluate millet-pulse-based food products by replacing traditional cereals.

Food products, such as "crispy crunch" and "nutrimilletvita," were formulated using Kodo millet (IPS 178), wheat (PBW 826), rice (PR 131), and chickpea in different proportions. For "crispy crunch," the ingredients were supplemented in the ratio of 50:30:20 percent, while "nutrimilletvita" was prepared with 50 percent supplementation of each of Kodo millet and chickpea. The developed food products were tested for their acceptability and nutritional composition against the traditional cereal.

The overall acceptability of formulated crispy crunch and nutrimilletvita was 7.54 and 7.80, respectively, which was comparable with the wheat- and rice-based product and wheat-based product, respectively. These products had a substantial amount of protein (10.01-18.31 g/100 g) and lysine (3.96-4.06 g/100 g) with considerable in vitro protein digestibility (73.7-78.3%) and protein digestibility amino acid score (0.39-0.45). The products, when stored for 3 months, were found to be organoleptically acceptable for 45 days. The developed products were cost-effective and nutritionally superior when compared with their traditional and market counterparts.

The study concluded that consumption of one serving of developed kudo millet chickpea-based products met 22-41% of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein and 46.1-79.5% of the lysine requirements of school-going children (7-12 years). Hence, the developed Kodo millet-chickpea combination can be effectively used as a replacement for wheat/rice for preparing various food products with good-quality protein.