Let’s Millet

I am happy and grateful to attend a session at the YWCA Secunderabad on “Lets Millets” – a session taken by two women entrepreneurs who are passionate about campaigning for millets, and bringing it back in our lives and also promoting it in the Telengana state.

Promoting Millet

Archana - consultant for Telengana tourism department and is personally involved in preparation of a variety of dishes with millets and also with combination with other products like jowar, multigrain, organic products etc. The other lady was by name Rahat who is into business of supplying various organic products.

The store which is closer to my residence

I am surprised to hear so many positive aspects of integrating millets in our daily living and how it could help us in staying healthy. 

Millets consume less water; the rainfall required is less than 25% with Telengana starved for water, millet will be a great option for both the rural and urban population.  Research findings say that millet has Magnesium that helps reduce migraines and heart attacks; it lowers cholesterol and help lower type 2 diabetes, improves digestive system, increase in energy levels. Millet is good source of nutrients, with very high vitamin –B content, calcium, iron, potassium, zinc, magnesium that can improve our health.

Photo by Nymphea Reddy

The different types of millets displayed – Sorghum (Jowar) one of the popular millets for weight loss. I remember my mother making roti in jowar, especially during the rainy season, and it used to be tasty consuming with a little pickle.

Foxtail millet, they say can be cooked just like rice… David brought home few months ago saying that one of his friend gave; I did not know how to prepare and tried making upma which was a disaster and never used it again.

Photo by Nymphea - a display of snacks by Neomi:)

Finger millet (ragi) - I remember my mother in law making ragi for my two kids; she used to feed ragi for them in breakfast everyday and they would enjoy. I had one of my colleague bringing ragi with buttermilk for lunch.

Pearl millet – (bajra) the famous roti made from this millet is popular among the construction workers, I used to notice the migrant population consuming this as one part of their meal. There are other types of millet too, like the little millet, kodo millet etc.

There is plenty of information available on the internet with regard to the usage of millets and even recipes for people who are interested in making it part of their daily routine.

Archana was inspiring us sharing her story about how she got into promoting millets and her journey of difficulties and obstacles in starting small joints in Hyderabad and how she had to incur financial losses and then with perseverance and supportive family she could get back into doing something she was passionate about ie., bringing healthy food in the open market and promoting through Telengana tourism hotels.

I picked up some snacks as a trial round, and tried making Jowar upma for an evening snack – I liked it, so now hoping to add millets in a gradual way J moving towards healthy way of living.

my experiment with jowar Poha:)

“What we learn becomes a part of who we are” 

Kathy Jeffords

Be Blessed & Be a Blessing!!