Antinutritional factors in millets and their reduction strategies through processing

Millets are climate resilient crops also known as “ Nutri Cereals ” due to the presence of excellent amounts of nutritional contents such as proteins, fiber, minerals, vitamins, and phytochemicals. The utilization of millets as an alternative staple food does not provide only macro and micronutrients, but it also helps in minimizing the global challenge of food insecurity, malnutrition, and environmental degradation. Millets exhibit various health benefits, including anti-tumour, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-diabetic properties due to the presence of various nutritional and bioactive compounds. Despite that, they have also possessed antinutritional factors such as tannins, phytic acids, enzyme inhibitors, polyphenols, saponins, and oxalates, which limit their nutritional and functional properties and reduce the bioavailability of macro and micronutrients. However, to overcome the antinutritional factors effects of millets, various conventional and innovative processing methods have been used to improve the nutritional status of millets and millet-based products. There are a very limited number of studies that have focused on the antinutritional factors of millets and their impacts on the nutritional and functional properties. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore the potential process methods to reduce the antinutritional factors of millets. The current study highlights the various millet processing methods, such as leaching, enzymatic degradation, and thermal denaturation, traditional techniques and advanced technologies such as cold plasma, pulsed electric field, ohmic heating, irradiation, high-pressure processing, enzymatic and ultrasound assistance to reduce the antinutritional factors in millets to improve their mineral absorption and protein digestibility.