香京julia种子在线播放

The recent paper from The Lancet Commissions (Willett et al., 2021) recognizes the need for identifying healthy and environmentally sustainable diets and enhanced usage of underused plant species, such as quinoa, millets, sorghum, or teff grains, due to their climate resilience and dense nutritional content. It also clearly captured that among 14,000 edible plants, only three crops, namely, rice, maize, and wheat, contribute 60% of caloric intake. On the other hand, the SDGs 2030 have its ambitious goal of eliminating all forms of malnutrition by 2030. To achieve this, interventions are required to replace the major portion of the diet currently occupied by rice, wheat, and maize with highly nutritious grains, such as millets.

In India and other Asian and African countries, millets commonly include sorghum, pearl millet, and a range of small millets (Vetriventhan et al., 2020). The term “millets” in this paper refers to all of these crops. India is the leading producer and consumer of different types of millets, such as finger millet, pearl millet, kodo millet, foxtail millet, barnyard millet, proso millet, and little millet (www.smartfood.org¹,²). India is the sixth largest producer of sorghum globally (www.smartfood.org). Traditionally, many kinds of foods and beverages were made from these grains in different regions, which played an important role as a staple food in the local food culture. However, their presence in the Indian food basket has been declining over the years largely due to government policies favoring the production and consumption of fine cereals, such as rice and wheat (Kane-Potaka and Kumar, 2019), as well as rising incomes and urbanization. Between 1960 and 2015 in India, wheat production more than trebled, and rice production increased by ~800%; on the contrary, millet production was stagnant at low levels (Kane-Potaka and Kumar, 2019). Between 1962 and 2010, India's per capita consumption of millets fell drastically from 32.9 to 4.2 kg, while that of wheat almost doubled from 27 to 52 kg (www.indiaspend.com)³. Another study reported in particular on pearl millet that per capita consumption trend declined between 1972/1973 and 2004/2005 in both rural and urban regions of India from 11.4 to 4.7 and from 4.1 to 1.4 kg per year, respectively (Basavaraj et al., 2010). A similar declining trend in per capita consumption was reported for sorghum in both rural and urban India from 19.1 to 5.2 and from 8.5 to 2.7 kg per year, respectively, representing 68 and 70% reduction (Parthasarathy Rao et al., 2010).

Millets are often referred to as smart food (www.smartfood.org), which is “good for the individual” (nutritious and healthy), “good for the planet” (environmentally sustainable), and “good for the farmer” (resilient). Millets are recognized for their resilience, ability to survive under high temperatures and in degraded soils, and minimum requirements of water, pesticides, and fertilizers (Saleh et al., 2013). Their farming methods leave a lower carbon footprint than the major staples that are grown with greater use of fertilizers and pesticides. Millets complement commonly used legumes in India, such as pigeon pea and chickpea, for amino acid content to form complete protein with improved digestibility upon cooking (Anitha et al., 2019a). Apart from protein, depending on the variety and species, millets are also rich in minerals, such as iron, zinc, and calcium, which deliver health benefits to all age groups and genders.

The high nutritional content of millets compares well with other foods with similar nutritional value; it is especially high compared with polished rice, maize, and refined wheat flour, the post-green revolution major staples (Longvah et al., 2017). Innovative millet processing technologies that provide safe, easy-to-handle, ready-to-cook, and ready-to-eat products and meals at a commercial scale are mainly available in urban areas (Ushakumari et al., 2004), where rice and refined wheat flour dominate and are much more accessible and affordable. The consumption of refined grains, namely, refined white rice, is shown to be associated with non-communicable diseases, such as type II diabetes mellitus (Radhika et al., 2009) and obesity. This has led to an increasing emphasis globally on consuming whole grains (Edge et al., 2005), underlining the importance of mainstreaming nutritious smart food crops and promoting them as a staple. This is one of the major objectives of the Smart Food initiative (Singh and Raghuvanshi, 2012; Kane-Potaka, 2018). Providing more nutritious and healthier traditional whole grain and multigrain substitutes for refined carbohydrates can be an important aspect of therapeutic dietary modification and diversity.

There is a growing interest in reviving millets in India (Kane-Potaka and Kumar, 2019) and also globally, owing to their nutrition content and ability to grow in harsh climatic conditions due to their climate smart traits. The Government of India declared 2018 as a National Year of Millets and followed on with preparing a national Millet Mission, as well as a proposition to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (UN) for a UN International Year of Millets. Several state governments in India also followed suit to establish state millet missions. These initiatives all recognized the need and built-in components to engage with consumers to drive demand and not only to invest in agricultural production and productivity. The demand for value added (processed) millet-based food products (being promoted as health foods) is increasing steadily in global markets (Rooney, 2010). This transition phase during which perceptions of millets are changing and there is greater health consciousness (Umanath et al., 2018) is the right stage to assess current knowledge, perceptions, and practices related to millets, which will lay the foundation for a plan to promote millets as a staple effectively.

Understanding current knowledge and practices is important for researchers, nutrition volunteers, community health workers, and food manufacturers in planning millet-based products, interventions, and promotional activities to improve the nutritional status and general health of the population and for companies to make nutritious foods a viable business. A limited number of studies have investigated the perceptions, awareness, and knowledge on millets. For instance, the study conducted on pearl millet, finger millet, and sorghum in Maharashtra state involved a relatively small sample of 111 participants who were all diabetic (Nambiar and Patwardhan, 2014). Another study on finger millet and oats in South India recognized the widespread lack of knowledge about the nutritional benefits of finger millet and the need to promote it through a survey with 260 women (Sreedhar and Shaji, 2017). To our knowledge, no formal study has focused on understanding consumers' knowledge, perceptions, and attitude on millets using a large sample survey covering various states of India. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the knowledge, perceptions, and practices of millets consumption in seven major cities of India.

A large sample survey was conducted to collect primary data on trends, attitudes, and opinions on millets consumption behavior of the target population who were urban consumers in India. The data were statistically analyzed to examine the relationship between variables (Creswell and Creswell, 2017). Surveys on beliefs, reasons, and barriers in purchase and consumption are widely used to evaluate food choice behavior (Roche et al., 2012; Irianto, 2015).

Millet campaigns and promotions implemented in the past few years may be the reasons for the higher recognition of millets among the young age group. The individual ability to recognize millets varied across states, in line with the diverse agro-ecologies and contrasting cropping patterns across India (Tsusaka and Otsuka, 2013). Frequent consumers were in Bengaluru, which is not surprising given its reputation for being an advanced city for organic and health foods including millets (Anbukkani et al., 2017). It may be noted that Karnataka state, of which Bengaluru is the capital, was the first Indian state to have a Millet Mission and to launch the annual national millet fair in January 2017, which promoted traditional millets to be brought back as staples and popular modern food.

Although millets can be easily incorporated into almost all popular rice- and wheat-based recipes, one of the reasons for not consuming millets regularly is the lack of knowledge on how to incorporate or cook them. Currently, a few recipes are widely used in communities to cook millets. These include finger millet balls, finger millet porridge, millet chapattis/rotis, and finger millet malt. The relationship between demographic characteristics and the attitude of farm women toward value-added products of finger millet were studied previously (Kowsalya et al., 2017), wherein it was concluded that when farm women were well-trained, there was a favorable attitude toward value addition of finger millet-based products. This, along with the consumer survey results, suggests the need for training on value addition for traditional smart foods, such as millets (Anitha et al., 2019a,b), and that preparing millets in a culturally appropriate manner helps in improving their acceptability. The model for introducing millets in communities and schools in an acceptable manner and how they can change perceptions and influence food preferences in a positive manner have been demonstrated previously (Diama et al., 2020; Wangari et al., 2020). Equally important is understanding the initial knowledge, practices, and individual attitude toward these traditional crops while planning and implementing any nutrition-related interventions using them. A study (Singh and Raghuvanshi, 2012) on knowledge, perceptions, and practices by 111 diabetes individuals reported that 55% of the participants consumed millets because it was a habit from childhood and only 26% of them reported that they ate it because they liked it. However, 11% of the respondents reported that they had no reason to consume millets. The reason for not consuming these grains was either because they were not prepared at their homes (20%) or were not part of their food from childhood (26.6%). Some of them reported that it was advised not to consume them, and 20.6% of them reported that there was no particular reason to not consume them. This shows that if millets were not eaten from childhood, there was no incentive or trigger for consuming them, hence the importance of raising awareness and inculcating good practices from childhood in order to develop a healthy population. However, the current study clearly demonstrated that the major reason for consuming millets was the prevalence of a health issue. A small percentage of people (11.8%) said that it was consumed due to the habit of it being eaten at home; while a significant percentage of people (39.2%) said they did not eat millets because of cultural habits of it not being eaten at home. This highlights the importance of influencing attitudes and practices for millets to become a common food in the household, resulting in more consumption. The result also shows that targeting the person/people who most influence what is eaten at home can have a multiplier effect on consumption.

In summary, health- and wellness-related issues were by far the major factors influencing consumption of millets in urban areas, with 58% of the interviewees stating so. Consumers with a health issue seemed to be the lowest hanging fruit with regard to market segments that were early adopters of millets, especially women. Consumers wanting to lose weight were also early adopters, again especially among women. Similar results were observed in the previous studies on consumer motives, attitude and purchase preferences for health and organic food products, showing that the health factor was the most important motive behind their selection and purchase (Syah and Yuliati, 2017; Nandi et al., 2016).

Furthermore, a large gap was identified between people who were health conscious (91%) and those who knew that millets were healthy (40%; Figure 6). While some health benefits of millets were recognized, such as its role in preventing lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases, there were several other health benefits not well-known previously. A recent systematic review and global meta-analysis of 65 studies on 11 types of millets shows that millets help manage and reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes (Anitha et al., 2021a). Another systematic review and meta-analysis of 19 studies shows that long-term consumption of millets can reduce cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), body mass index (BMI), and hypertension, which is another piece of evidence of its potential in reducing the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (Anitha et al., 2021b). Their richness in iron also helps in improving hemoglobin levels and iron status of the body (Anitha et al., 2021c). In particular, finger millet is rich in calcium and zinc, which are essential for growth and immunity. These nutritional and therapeutic effects of millets are vital and provide alternative ways to solve some of the global public health issues. The proportion of people aware of health benefits of millets being 40% implies a large proportion of potential consumers and a significant knowledge gap. This result is also supported by an earlier study in Tamil Nadu that people had little knowledge of millets in comparison with oats (Sreedhar and Shaji, 2017). Learning the actual health and nutritional benefits would increase consumption of millets. It is recognized that reaching the mainstream market may be challenging and would require more than just awareness raising.

However, as family customs strongly influence what people eat at home, influencing the decision makers at households would have a ripple effect on consumption and be a major way to reach male consumers. Taste was observed to be a major reason why the respondents did/did not eat more millets, indicating that health awareness alone would not significantly boost millet consumption. Together, these insights showed the need for tasty products and simple recipes made from millets. As millets are mostly eaten as traditional porridge, there seem to be abundant opportunities to grow the market through ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook convenience foods and cookies, among others.

Overall, it is recognized that the market for millets would expand with appropriate awareness campaigns targeting different segments, especially through social media channels that were found to be the major sources of information on health and food. It would also be important to introduce tasty, modern, and convenient products into markets that are more easily accessible.

The findings of this study may be useful for policymakers as well as different stakeholders, e.g., food companies, government entities, nutritionists, development organizations, and researchers, who intend to promote consumption of millets under various government programs by improving awareness and delivering marketing campaigns. Specific consumer segments should be identified based on the research evidence, while the understanding of consumer awareness and rationale for eating or not eating millets may potentially be valuable inputs to public health debate. In particular, this may be useful for the Government of India Millet Mission, individual state Millet Missions, and the potential upcoming UN International Year of Millets (2023). The information may also help design nutrition behavioral change programs in urban settings.

The shopping centers where the surveys were conducted had good footfalls, with a wide variety of visitors. Nevertheless, the data were geographically localized, and the interviewees resided mainly in major urban cities. Future studies should attempt to obtain similar data on consumption, knowledge, and attitudes at the rural and peri-urban levels to compare various consumer segments and to develop better understanding of millet utilization. Moreover, repeated studies should be conducted to track these changes over time and the influences on changed behavior.

Little has been formally studied about urban consumers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to millets despite growing health consciousness among people, increasing non-communicable diseases in India, and the nutritional potential of millets. The survey involving over 15,000 face-to-face interviews across seven major cities in India is arguably the largest survey on consumers about millets. A key aim of this study was to understand the motivation of consumers and how best to position millets in any campaigns while planning agriculture-based nutrition interventions to improve the market, consumption, and nutritional status. The findings imply a need to more actively promote the benefits of millets and to create awareness of various ways of cooking millets or creating millet products to satisfy taste preferences and change the perception of millets, which would in turn lead to an increase in their consumption.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Materials, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

JK-P: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, review and editing, and resources. SA, TWT, and RB: validation, formal analysis, data curation, and writing original draft. KM, RH, and MB: methodology, validation, and first analysis. SU, PK, SN, and AJ: writing—review and editing. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

KM was employed by company SR Global Media and Research Pvt. Ltd. RH was employed by Thought Folks Digital. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.