“Growing up, my family had millets as an alternative to wheat and rice. There is a need to make millets, the primary food again, because of its nutritional value and less resource-intensive cultivation,” said B Subba Rao one of the visitors to the Millets Food Festival at the YMCA parking lot, Beach Road, on the eve of Independence Day.
This was an initiative by Millet World, a upcoming consumer store in Siripuram which promises to bring consumers a range of millets including sorghum, foxtail millet, little millets and kodo millet. . The food festival was to increase awareness about the goodness of millets and how easy it was to switch to them without too much hassle. To demonstrate that traditional rice-based dishes were prepared with millets so there was jowar carrot idli, ragi dosa, kodo millet pulao, millet bisi bele bath, foxtail millet lemon rice and barnyard millet kheer. “We wanted to show how millets can be incorporated into your favourite recipes,”said Amulya Kolla from Millets World.
Many cafes and nutrition centres in the city are already on the millet bandwagon. Some of its earliest advocates are the stalls that sell ragi malt and sprouts at prominent locations. Senior citizen M Visalakshi agrees that these stalls have played an important role in the revival of millets. “It’s because of them we were introduced to ragi malt. It’s been two years since we’ve included millets in our diet.”
It is converting the young people into eating millets that is a challenge says Amulya. “Reviving millets will remain a dream if the youth does not take to it and take it forward. And for this reason we will continue to conduct many more awareness programmes.”
