7 Peculiar Uses Of Pearl Millets!(Kambu)

4 min read

bajra pearl millet wooden bamboo basket 136354 4188

What are millets? Our grandparents know about this more than we do.

But no one would give a ear to hear those nutritious facts in this busy world except when we took an appointment to meet a dietician after we have been confirmed as a diabetic! lol!

Let’s  spend two minutes for you  to get concerned for your health and hear those nutritious benefits of millets.

Millets are annually tufted grass that were domesticated in India 3000 year back. Pearl millets are slowly staging a comeback since we started to appreciate the health benefits offered by it!

They are drought-resistant resistant crops which can be grown in dryland and cultivated in Asia 10 thousand years ago. They are unique to their short growing season. The millet foods are miracle grains so they are called siridhanya!

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Types Of Siridhanya

Grains are classified as postive, neutral, and negative and the millet range constitute as positive and neutral grains.

1. Among the positive millet grains, which have dietary fibre 8% to 12.5% are foxtail (navane), banyard (oodale), araka (kodo), little (samai) and brown top (Korale).

2. Neutral grains have lesser dietary fibre and other nutrients are pearl (sajje), finger (ragi), broso (baragu) and great millet (white Jowar).

Giving a little introduction on millets, let’s dive straight into the topic now!

Kambu (in tamil) is also called kambam (in Malayalam), bhajri (in Gujarati), bhajra (in Hindi,Urdu,Punjabi), sajjalu (in telugu).

Do you know that India is the largest producer of pearl millet? India began growing millets before 3300 BCE. Rajasthan is the highest producer of pearl millets.

Kambu is the tamil name of pearl millet and important food across Tamilnadu. Before 10 years, kambu was consumed in all houses but now, kambu become so rare that it is only available in small street stalls.

You might wonder how does it taste like? I want to share my personal experience here!

Have you drank kambu koozh(gruel)?

After a tiring class in summer, me and my friends came out of our campus and searched for something chill to drink under the burning sun. We saw a small stall nearby and walk towards it.

A short man dressed up with lungi and a faded shirt was lying his head on the side of vehicle-like stall.

Hearts popped out of my eyes when I saw the appetizers to drink with the koozh. Besides calling it appetizers, I would like to call it as side dish! (That’s what we call right? haha!)

There were 8 colourful boxes arranged in a straight line. The items were onions rice papadams, dried fish(karuvaadu), raw mango with chilli (I can see your mouth drooling! hehe:), lady’s finger papadam (vendakkai vathal), brinjal papadams (kathirikkaivathal), chilly flakes.

We ordered kambu khoozh for each one of us. He delivered us a small mud pot having a greyish curd like liquid with small onions on top of it.

When I took my first sip, oh man! Why did we forget this drink now? My dopamine and serotonin levels were up with a boom! The chill of the drink went calming down my taste buds and into my throat and down through my esophagus and the onions started to dance in my stomach.

What could I wait for? I began gulping the drink with the chillied raw mangoes  and dried fish nearby! It seems like my friends were staring at me for some time but i was busy enjoying the meal.

I noticed that the stall man was also staring at me! Guess what! I finished the whole plate of raw mangoes and papads kept for us and those extra kept for the others. Poor me! I couldn’t stop my cravings at all.

After finishing my drink, (I thought a spoon will be better to empty the pot) but believe me, the kambu khoozh was tastier than my silly words lol!

I took a handful of papadams and raw mango after I saw my friend paying the money. My friend told me” Stop behaving silly until the stall man throw the pot at your head”, but I didn’t took her words.

The kambukhoozh and raw mango were more and more valuable. It’s a taste buds craving meal to satisfy your stomach, brain and the stall man too. (but not like me lol!)

Its so unfortunate that we are not sticked to these healthy things nowdays:(
Now, coming back again to the topic !

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Nutritional Value Per 100 g

  • Energy.            -1470 kJ
  • Carbohydrates.     -75 g
  • Fibre               -6.0g
  • Fat.               -3.3 g
  • Proteins.          -10.6 g
  • Minerals.          -2.3 g
  • Iron.             -16.9 mg
  • Calcium.          -38 mg
  • It contains vitamins like E, K, B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, folates.
  • It is also a rich source of minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, sodium and potassium.

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1. Healthy Heart

Kambu contains lignin, magnesium, phytonutrients which acts a strong antioxidants to maintain blood pressure and prevents heart related diseases.

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2. Lowers Cholesterol

A rich source of fibre, flavonoids and Omega 3 fatty acids stop lipid perodoxication reducing triglycerides levels and bad cholesterol (LDL) levels.

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3. Are You and Diabetic?

Kambu has a higher slowly digestible starch which breaks into glucose and slowly entering the blood stream thus maintaining the blood glucose levels. It provide stable energy to diabetic patients.

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4. Beats Anemia

It contains a high amount of iron and zinc which increases hemoglobin levels and prevents irom deficieny anemia which is very commonly found in pregnant women and children.

Drinking this regularly shows effective improvement in heme levels.

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5. Prevents gallstones formation

Formation of gallstones are very common. Its prevalence is about more than 10 million cases in India per year” according to google statistics.

The high fibre content in pearl millet reduce the formation of gallstones due to the reduction of intestinal transit time and reduces the secretion of bile acid (which is the major reason to form gallstones).

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6. Reduce The Risk Of Developing Cancer

Kambu have amazing properties to prevent cancer. They contain an essential phytonutrient called lignin which has the ability to kill cancer cells.

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7. Effective Relief For Constipation

Constipation is the difficulty in passing stools due to insufficient fibre intake and water intake. Kambu is the richest source of fibre which regulates your bowel movements and add bulk to your stools preventing constipation.

Besides having many nutritional value, it also stands as legendary food for poor but health conscious farmers. We could not control everything in our life but we can control what we put in our body!

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Buying Guide

You can buy our Standard Pearl Millet at affordable prices for healthy living!!

https://standardcoldpressedoil.com/nattu-kambu

Here is a 5 minute video link of how to make kambu koozh! https://youtu.be/209m9vXZcuQ

Reference links:

  • http://www.foodofy.com/pearl-millet.html
  • https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3943

Originally posted 2020-01-17 22:58:42.

Elakeya I am a young Physician Associate by career but always love to write! I expertise in medical writing, nutrition, cooking, and even travel and food.
Elakeya I am a young Physician Associate by career but always love to write! I expertise in medical writing, nutrition, cooking, and even travel and food.

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