Abstract

The millets are mostly grown in semi-arid regions with drought and high-temperature conditions and are the staple food of the poor. They have short growing seasons with productivity, making them highly valuable. However, in recent years millets have gained attention due to their beneficial effects on human health. The consumption of millets is very limited to the poorer section of the population, this may be due to the non-availability of ready-to-eat and ready-to-use foods in urban areas. Therefore, an attempt was made in the present study to diversify the use of millets by subjecting three selected millets viz. Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana), Pearl Millet (Pennisetum), Little Millet (Panicum sumatrense) to thermal processing that is popping the millet and developing the nutribars using the mixture of these popped millets and different sweeteners like jaggery., palm, jaggery, brown sugar, and honey. Further, the products were analyzed for major nutrients (fat, protein, carbohydrate, and fiber) and minor nutrients (calcium, phosphorus, iron). Sensory evaluation was performed using a nine-point hedonic scale and a storage stability study was done at room temperature and at 5°C from 0th day to 30th day by analyzing. Free fatty acids, peroxide value, and microbial analysis. From the results, it is observed that there is no significant difference in the nutrients among the products, but brown sugar nutribars were mostly acceptable by the sensory panel among the other nutribars. The development of the product from popped millet and their quality analysis are discussed in the present paper.