Physico-Chemical, Functional and Proximate Properties of Standardised Millet Flakes

Millets are the 5th most important cereals in the world after wheat, maize, rice and barley. It is a minor cereal containing abundant of nutrients but its consumption is lacking to a certain extent mainly due to the lack of ready-to-cook or ready-to-eat products and processing of millet to prepare ready to cook (RTC) foods can increase its economic and nutritional value. The processing, physical, chemical and nutritional aspects were analysed against the commercially available foxtail and proso flakes to standardise. The decorticated grains were steeped in 5 L of potable water at ambient conditions (30 ± 2ºC) for 10 hr, autoclaved at 180ºC under the pressure of 20 to 24 lbs/psi for 10 min dried at 50ºC in a mechanical dryer to 18 ± 1% moisture content. The processed grains were rolled to flakes in a heavy-duty roller flakes machine with an aperture size of 0.25 mm. The commercial foxtail and proso flakes had higher values for all physical parameters than standardised ones.