Millets: a cereal grain with potent antioxidants and health benefits

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 (14.3-3.8mg 100g(-1)), ellagic acid (8.5-4.9mg 100g(-1)), caffeic acid (6.3-2.3mg 100g(-)), gallic acid (224-170mg 100g(-1)), hydroxybenzoic acid (2.3-0.6mg 100g(-1)), catechin (87.2-45.6mg 100g(-1)), ferulic acid (45.4-17.5mg 100g(-1)) and epicatechin (23.9-4.8mg 100g(-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.