It is thought that millet was the first cereal to be used domestically and has been used in India and Africa as a staple food for thousands of years. In the UK, millet is most associated as a food for birds especially budgerigars!

Millet is a versatile food and can be used on its own instead of rice and also in soups, porridge and ground to a flour to make bread, cakes and muffins. It can also be sprouted to use in salads.

Millet seeds are encased in an indigestible hull which has to be removed before we can eat it. The millet seeds are like tiny yellow beads and have a sweetish nutty taste when cooked.

Although we tend to think of millet as a grain it is in fact a seed. And being a seed rather than a grain, it contains a fair amount of protein (about 15%).

Nutritionally, millet is rich in the B vitamins especially B3 and B6 and also the minerals magnesium, zinc, calcium and iron.

As millet is gluten-free it is an excellent grain for those people with Coeliac’s disease and for anybody with a wheat intolerance as it is not related to the wheat family.

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