Exploring sustainable novel millet protein: A look at the future foods through innovative processing

The increase in human population brings major concerns related to food sustainability, security and nutrition across the globe. This led to massive efforts to explore protein-rich foods as potential candidates for future foods and investigate innovative green and sustainable processing techniques. Millet, a drought-resistant crop, is a promising candidate of future foods due to its unique agricultural performance and excellent nutritional profile. Nevertheless, its undesirable properties i.e., astringency and bitterness pose a challenge in formulating millet-based foods. In this review, a multi-disciplinary approach focussed on modification techniques including physical, chemical, biological and novel has been presented. Also, the challenges faced by food processors to formulate millet based futuristic foods and applications of modified millet proteins have been included. The modification leads to denaturation or degradation which alters three-dimensional structure and break down of proteins in smaller fragments respectively making it attractive option as a delivery carrier and protein rich food to address food insecurity.