RA 00048.pdf - OAR@ICRISAT

Session 7 Food Quality and Utilization
P. Pushpamma* Discussant
It is a fact that the success of any cultivar at the
consumer level depends on several of its characters,
rather than on any single factor. It is
recognized that until a decade ago, food scientists
and nutritionists contributed very little to improve
the postproduction system of sorghum, which
includes storage, processing and utilization. When
we first started the IDRC project in 1974 on
dryland crops, we were surprised to note that
there was hardly any information available on
storage losses in sorghum, quality characters of
sorghum foods, and milling quality of sorghum.
For these areas of sorghum, I feel that this
Symposium has shown that impressive progress
has been made recently.
The first paper in this session was presented by
Reichert on the present status of sorghum milling
and future needs. He made an excellent review of
the various efforts made in improvising and
adopting rice and wheat dehullers to suit the
structure of the sorghum kernels.
A number of the traditional sorghum preparations
require dehulled grain which is obtained by
pounding, mostly by the wet method. He pointed
out the drudgery of women in day-to-day processing
of sorghum, who are compelled by the poor
keeping quality of the flour. This is one of the
critical factors contributing to the tendency of
sorghum consumers to shift to more convenient
grains like wheat and rice.
Reichert especially emphasized the need for
developing mechanical milling, i.e., large-scale
processing units for urban markets, and also
medium to small size mills for rural consumers.
The latter definitely prefer to get their own grain in
small batches. This applies to wheat and rice in
rural areas. However, such efforts are conspicuously
lacking in India, though the problem is no
less in magnitude.
* Dean, Faculty of Home Science, Andhra Pradesh
Agricultural University, Hyderabad, A.P., India.
He also referred to the existing gaps in the
knowledge on quality required for sorghum flour.
One of the key issues is the shelf life of processed
flour. Improving the quality depends upon the
removal of the germ which contains the best
quality protein. This also raises the question of
removing the oil and a loss of calories.
There are other nutritional implications of processing
which require careful consideration. In
traditional milling the level of dehulling is adjusted
to the nature of the grain. This is necessary not
only to maximize the extraction rate but also to
retain nutrients. This is especially important as the
outer layer of the endosperm and the germ
contain a higher concentration of nutrients. It may
not be out of place to recall here our experience of
introducing rice milling: Excess milling of rice for
better acceptability increased the prevalence of
vitamin B deficiency in rice consuming areas.
When this fact was recognized, hand pounded
rice was introduced into the market as "health
food" at a higher price as the practice of hand
pounding was totally replaced by rice mills. It is
therefore necessary to evaluate the dehullers for
their performance in terms of minimizing nutrient
losses and also for adjusting the level of dehulling
depending on the grain. Appropriate biological
evaluation of grain before and after dehulling is
necessary as apparent losses may be deceptive
as in the case of high-tannin varieties. Similarly,
the calcium content of any variety is reduced in
milling but availability is increased.
Regarding the gaps in the quality requirement
of flour, it may be different for different sorghum
products. For this purpose, a study of the characteristics
of the best quality and poorest quality
grain for different products may be useful in fixing
the maximum and minimum acceptable range of
quality parameters used for flour quality.
The introduction of suitable dehullers along with
flour mills will be necessary because:
• It reduces the drudgery of women in the
sorghum eating areas.
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. 1982. Sorghum in the Eighties: Proceedings of
Symposium on Sorghum, 2-7 Nov 81. Patancheru, A.P., India. Patancheru, A.P. India: ICRISAT.
the International
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