Millet Seed

Millet is a low maintenance and drought-resistant grain. People often use it to feed livestock, but consumer interest is growing. This grain provides various health benefits and has multiple uses in cooking. People have benefited from the nutritional properties of millet for thousands of years. The Old Testament of the Bible mentions it, as do texts from ancient Greece and Rome. Millet grows extremely quickly and matures in almost half the time required for rice and wheat. This makes it the ideal crop, contributing to its rapid spread across Asia and into Europe. Millet is now the sixth most important cereal grain in the world. In the contemporary United States, millet is often used to feed pets, livestock, and birds, but it is growing in consumer popularity. This is because it is gluten free and a good source of protein, fiber, micronutrients. It also provides multiple benefits to physical and mental health, requires few inputs to grow, and is resistant to drought. This article discusses the types of millet available, its nutritional properties and benefits, potential downsides to millet, and how to use it in cooking.