Sorghum, "millet," and teff are now listed among the whole grain options
covered by the U.S. Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants, and Children (WIC). This is part of a wider change in WIC's list
of eligible foods, that has been under discussion since November 2022. WIC
is a Federal program administered by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service,
and state-level agencies, for healthcare and nutrition of low-income
pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and children under the age of five.
"Millet" in the list is not given a precision that we are aware of. In the
U.S., as we know, this term is commonly used to refer to proso millet,
which is a significant crop in the High Plains. However, the term also
covers the range of small grains surnamed "millet," which would represent
an even larger expansion of the list of eligible whole grains under WIC.
This is a very positive development, both for the health and nutrition of
eligible recipients, and for growers and processors of sorghum, proso
millet, and teff in the U.S. And in the bigger picture, it's another step
ahead for millets in North America.
For more info:
* "WIC Food Packages - Regulatory Requirements for WIC-Eligible Foods,"
USDA, 10 Apr 2024 (look under "Types of Whole Wheat Bread, Whole Grain
Bread, and Other Whole Grains")
https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/food-packages/regulatory-requirements
* "WIC is changing in 2024. Here's what to expect," by Adrienne Crezo,
Center for Science in the Public Interest, 10 Apr 2024
https://www.cspinet.org/cspi-news/wic-changing-2024-heres-what-expect
* "Sorghum Joins WIC National Food Package: USCP Celebrates Enhanced
Nutrition Accessibility for Children in Expanded Offerings," United Sorghum
Checkoff Program (press release), 11 Apr 2024
https://www.sorghumcheckoff.com/press-releases/sorghum-joins-wic-national-f…
* "Proposals would expand WIC whole grain options," by Jeff Gelski, Baking
Business, 25 Nov. 2022
https://www.bakingbusiness.com/articles/57884-proposals-would-expand-wic-wh…
* WIC, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIC
Thanks to our friend and Director of Nutrition & Food Innovation at Sorghum
Checkoff, Lanier Dabruzzi, MS, RD, LD, whose posting of the USCP press
release (link above) brought this to our attention.
Don Osborn, PhD
(East Lansing, MI, US)
North American Millets Alliance
Since I was a bit behind with the foxtail millet "millet-of-the-month"
post, I might as well follow up with a century-old article about this
grain. This piece was apparently syndicated, appearing in several local
papers in the US around 1917. I found it interesting. You may judge how
well it holds up after all this time.
This particular version came from a paper in Lancaster, PA, accessed via
Newspapers.com./1 An image is attached, and the text from a
surprisingly good OCR (which I quickly corrected) follows below.
The author, Harry N. Vinall, wrote a number of crop bulletins,/2 of which
one of them with the same title as this article goes into more depth on the
subject./3
Don Osborn, PhD
(East Lansing, MI, US)
North American Millets Alliance
Notes:
1. "Growth and Utilization of Foxtail Millet," by H.N, Vinall, Lancaster
Intelligencer, 27 June 1917, p. 8
https://www.newspapers.com/article/lancaster-intelligencer-growth-utiliza/1…
2.
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Vinall%2C%…
3. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101804274
-----------------------
THE GROWTH AND UTILIZATION OF FOXTAIL MILLET
By H. N. VINALL
The name millet is applied to a number of cultivated annual grasses, some
of which are used largely as forage crops and others as cereals; most of
them, however, are used either for forage or for grain, according to the
needs of the growers. In the United all except for the broomcorn millet are
used almost exclusively for forage purposes, but in Africa, India, China,
Korea, Japan, and Russia the millets are grown extensively for human food.
In China the broomcorn and foxtail millets are most common, and the grain,
after being cleaned and hulled, is crushed and cooked as a porridge, much
as certain breakfast foods are used in America. In India, pearl millet,
which is grown there under the native name of bajra is the most important
millet. Korea and Japan produce considerable proso and foxtail millet, and
the latter country also devotes a considerable acreage to barnyard millet,
which is grown there almost entirely for its seed; but the millet crop is
of minor importance in these countries, as it is in Europe, where it is not
cultivated extensively except in the Mediterranean region and in Russia.
Much proso or broomcorn millet is produced in Russia, especially in the
southeastern provinces.
Millet is one of the oldest of cultivated crops. Its planting has been
mentioned in Chinese records as being part of a religious ceremony carried
out by the Chinese emperor as early as 2700 B. C. Probably native in
southern Asia, its culture spread from there westward to Europe at an early
date. In 1849 a distribution of millet German Millet. seed was made by the
United States Patent Office, and in 1888 millet had become a rather
important crop in the central states, where it was found better adapted
than along the Atlantic coast.
By 1899 over 74 per cent of the total acreage of millet was found in the
north-central states. Kansas, with 349,906 acres, led all the states, and
produced an average of 1.9 tons of millet hay per acre, against an average
of 1.6 tons per acre for the whole United States. According to the
thirteenth census, Kansas was still first in millet production, the leading
states ranking in the following order: Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Nebraska,
North Dakota, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. To succeed well, millet must have
warm weather during the growing season. It does not grow well at high
altitudes or in other localities where cold weather prevails during the
summer months.
Notwithstanding this preference for warm weather, millet is grown
successfully in our most northern states, especially those in the Great
Plains region, because in those states the summers, though short, are hot.
Millet, as it matures quickly, can be planted and harvested during these
summer months. The long days prevailing in this latitude provide plenty of
sunshine, and thus a less period of time is required for maturing the crop.
The longer seasoned varieties, like German and Turkestan, can be grown
successfully only in the central or southern states. Millet does best in
localities which have a fairly abundant rainfall.
Many writers have referred to the millets as drought-resistant crops, and
they do have a low water requirement, but they lack the ability to recover
after being injured by a period of drought. This ability to recover from
drought injury is very pronounced in the sorghums, but the millets succeed
in localities subject to drought almost entirely through their ability to
escape periods of acute drought on account of their short growing season.
Millet is usually one of the first crops to show the effect of a drought,
mainly because of its shallow root system. A rich, loose, loamy soil is
best for millet. Plenty of humus is advantageous, and for this reason
millet is often planted on newly turned grass sod.
It is a good crop for such situations also, because it seems to aid in
disintegrating the sod. Good drainage is essential. Millet is grown chiefly
as a catch crop and is not important as a constituent in a regular cropping
system. Most farmers use it to overcome an expected shortage in their hay
supply or to occupy a field which would otherwise be idle on account of the
failure of a regular crop or because climatic conditions have prevented the
seeding of such a crop. Millet is admirably suited to such use because of
its short season of growth and the ease and certainty of obtaining a stand.
The plant is also adapted to a wide range both of soils and of climates.
Large yields are not obtained either on poor soils or in dry climates, but
millet has been found to make a heavier yield under such conditions than
most other hay crops. The strongest competitor of millet which has yet been
found is Sudan grass, which promises to replace millet in many localities
as a catch crop, so that a further decrease in the acreage of millet is to
be expected. The quality of Sudan grass hay is superior to that of millet,
and its yields under comparable conditions are nearly always larger, but
the growing season is a trifle longer than that required by either Common
or Hungarian millet. Foxtail millet is used to some extent as a soiling
crop, but it is not as well suited for this purpose as the sorghums and
some of the small grains.
Pearl millet is better for use as a green feed than the foxtail millets,
because of its larger yield and its ability to make a second growth after
being cut down; and both pearl millet and barnyard millet are better silage
crops than foxtail millet, because of their larger yields and greater
succulence. Foxtail millet has never been utilized to any great extent as a
grain crop in the United States. In China and certain other parts of Asia,
as was stated in the introduction, it is used more or less as human food.
So long as wheat can be produced in the United States as abundantly and
cheaply as at present little millet will be grown for human food.
--
Don, I appreciated your reply to the WSJ. Ignoring the article would
confirm the premise.
As David suggested, millet is a rice alternative, just like bulgar wheat.
When millet reaches the U.S. food market share of bulgar wheat, millet
needs to step up to the share of pearl barley, rye (breads), oats (rolled,
meal, milk), then millet would be on its way to reaching the share of durum
wheat, and etcetera...just like other grains are trying to get to millet's
market share of wild birdfeed.
Today's closing ceremony of International Year of Millets proved increased
awareness of millets worldwide with speakers from Algeria, Australia, and
Minnesota, plus the expected substantial representation of India and
central Africa. It didn't just happen. India and the U.N. took the lead
highlighting millet uses through news media.
As suggested with waxy, someone, likely this group, needs to take the lead
with U.S. millet news articles. It is not enough to just respond when some
entity, as unlikely as the WSJ, randomly gives millet a bit of
recognition....Gary Wietgrefe
On Fri, Mar 29, 2024 at 6:01 AM <collab-request(a)lists.millets2023.space>
wrote:
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>
> 1. Re: Reply to WSJ article on "millet" having "no taste"
> (Don Osborn)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2024 09:06:41 -0400
> From: Don Osborn <don(a)milletsalliance.org>
> To: "Brenner, David (CTR) - REE-ARS" <david.brenner(a)usda.gov>
> Cc: Joni Kindwall-Moore <joni(a)snacktivistfoods.com>,
> "collab(a)lists.millets2023.space" <collab(a)lists.millets2023.space>
> Subject: Re: [Collab] Reply to WSJ article on "millet" having "no
> taste"
> Message-ID:
> <CA+RHibXPTUq=
> jwGGkyV9a3a2R1b2yS4xkmWJpkAAA21iXHuLqQ(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Thank you for your replies,
>
> Joni, the article does seem to be an outlier, which is not to suggest that
> all coverage on millets has to be the same or uniformly positive. But here
> I get the sense that the object was to find some catchy juxtaposition (per
> clickbait, as you put it). It missed on some fundamentals, as I see it -
> namely: omission of mention of the International Year of Millets; no a
> clear indication that the authors understood that "millet" is not one
> thing, culinarily; and no delving into the premise of "no taste." A more
> productive angle, if they wanted to focus on the matter of flavors of
> millets, might have been to ask if taste might be a factor in the decline
> of popularity of millets relative to major cereal grains in India (since
> that country was the setting for the effort we are reviewing), and if it
> might be a factor in their revival. Not sure that would have worked either,
> but it might have been more thought provoking.
>
> This short feature article does not seem to have had much play in any media
> space, so it may not be helpful to write a formal reply. On the other hand,
> it might be worth cultivating relations with food writers at the WSJ and
> other news organizations. It's good that millets (even if just "millet")
> got some recognition in this paper - has it run any straight news pieces on
> millets or the IYM?. Maybe an invitation rather than a rebuttal would yield
> a better harvest?
>
> David, I actually have a waxy (glutinous [not glutEn as we know], or
> "sticky") proso millet in my kitchen. I've only used it as a grain
> component in a stew, with the thought that its physical qualities help make
> the sauce part more viscous (I'm more of a food hacker than a cook, but the
> resulta aren;t bad. My impression generally is that the flavor isn't
> significantly different. In the case of rice, for me, sticky rice is
> comfortably in the range of rice flavors. If you have a market specializing
> in Chinese foods, it should be easy to find sticky ("nuo") millets: proso
> ("da-hwang-mi") or foxtail ("xiao-mi").
>
> Regarding flavors of millets generally, I'd still like to see some "blind"
> taste tests. Is there enough of a millets constituency at Iowa State to
> arrange such a thing, say this fall?
>
> Best to all,
>
> Don
>
> DO, EL, MI, US
> NAMA
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 25, 2024 at 11:29?AM Brenner, David (CTR) - REE-ARS <
> david.brenner(a)usda.gov> wrote:
>
> > If this were a taste race with rice some millets could win placing near
> > bulgar wheat. I would like to enter waxy versions of millets in the same
> > race, but I have never tasted them, so I just guess they are wonderful.
> > Cooks make whole-plate compositions, as Don says. For example, we still
> > have vanilla ice cream even though chocolate ice cream and sherbert are
> > available. David Brenner
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > *From:* Collab <collab-bounces(a)lists.millets2023.space> on behalf of
> Joni
> > Kindwall-Moore <joni(a)snacktivistfoods.com>
> > *Sent:* Monday, March 25, 2024 9:30 AM
> > *To:* Don Osborn <don(a)milletsalliance.org>
> > *Cc:* collab(a)lists.millets2023.space <collab(a)lists.millets2023.space>
> > *Subject:* [External Email]Re: [Collab] Reply to WSJ article on "millet"
> > having "no taste"
> >
> > [External Email]
> > If this message comes from an *unexpected sender* or references a
> *vague/unexpected
> > topic;*
> > Use caution before clicking links or opening attachments.
> > Please send any concerns or suspicious messages to: Spam.Abuse(a)usda.gov
> > Yes, it was clear that it was just a 'click bait' silly article for the
> > reasons you mentioned above Don. What a wasted of journalism space. We
> > should write a rebuttal and approach the WSJ with it.
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 8:04?PM Don Osborn <don(a)milletsalliance.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Here is my reply to the Wall Street Journal article that characterised
> > "millet" as a "superfood" with "no taste." Thank you again to Prof.
> Dipak
> > Santra for enabling us to access the full article. Thanks also to Gary
> > Wietgrefe for his take on this issue, which I used in the third ("So
> > what?") question I raised. This was posted to LinkedIn on Friday 3/22.
> DO
> >
> >
> > The Wall Street Journal ran a feature article last fall that was less
> than
> > favorable about hashtag#millets from the perspective of hashtag#flavor -
> > "It?s the World?s Hot New Superfood. The Snag: It ?Has No Taste.?"*
> > Although the authors cover some useful points - and one is never upset to
> > see more discussion about millets - I'd like to engage with the premise
> of
> > "no taste." To do so I'll pose three questions: What are we talking
> about?
> > What are we expecting? & So what?
> >
> > First, however, wanted to express surprise that no reference was made in
> > the article to the larger context of Indian P.M. Narenda Modi's interest
> in
> > these grains, namely, the International Year of Millets (2023). How could
> > the authors and the WSJ editors fail to mention this observance, the
> > promotion of which has been a major project of P.M. Modi's government,
> and
> > which was ongoing at the time of publication?
> >
> > My three questions about the article's premise that millets have no
> taste,
> > and thoughts about them, follow:
> > 1. What are we talking about? The article is one of those which uses the
> > singular "millet" throughout, and this generally raises the question of
> > whether the authors are referring to (a) one specific kind of millet,
> being
> > unaware of other kinds, or rather (b) all kinds of millets, seen as
> having
> > the same characteristics. In this case, I'll assume that the authors
> (Shan
> > Li and Rajesh Roy) are aware of the plurality of millets, but for
> whatever
> > reason, treat them as so similar as to present as one thing in foods (b).
> >
> > In fact, millets are not the same. Personally I found this out years ago
> > when buying one "millet" thinking it was another, and finding out that
> the
> > taste was totally different. Today, some millets like proso and fonio are
> > described as having a slightly "nutty" flavor (this adjective is
> admittedly
> > overused), although I've also seen proso once compared to roasted corn
> (not
> > sure I'd agree, but it's clearly not without taste). Others, like little,
> > kodo, barnyard, are flatter in taste, closer to rice. One author
> described
> > finger millet as having a chocolatey flavor. Pearl millet has yet another
> > flavor, which I find unique.
> >
> > 2. What are we expecting? Grains in general have subtle flavors, and
> > millets are no exception. They bring notes and textures to a dish or
> > confection, as well as bulk (esp. in high-starch diets), but aren't there
> > to dominate. Even bread, typically built around wheat flour, includes a
> few
> > or even many other ingredients - and then is eaten as a side or with a
> > spread.
> >
> > 3. So what if they did have "no taste"? Who normally eats a grain without
> > accompaniment of some sort? Even if a millet is perceived as being bland,
> > I'd argue that the issue is what combinations work best with it. Food
> > cultures of Asia and Africa may be well-established in this respect, but
> > there is opportunity to experiment further everywhere - and that's the
> key
> > message I'd propose at this point.
> >
> > * WSJ, 20 Oct 2023
> >
> https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/supergrain-millet-healthy-india-modi-2cc8b9d4
> >
> >
> > Don Osborn, PhD
> > (East Lansing, MI, US)
> > North American Millets Alliance
> >
> >
> > --
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> >
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>
Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) is our "millet-of-the-month" for March
again in 2024. It is the second most cultivated of the millets (or third,
counting sorghum). It is grown for grain mostly in Asia (esp. China &
India). In North America it is mainly grown for hay or cover crop, but
imported foxtail grain for human consumption can be found in Asian food
markets or onlne.
Three items about this millet may be of interest:
* "All About Foxtail Millet: 3 Tips for Cooking With Foxtail Millet,"
MasterClass.com, 7 June 2021
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/foxtail-millet-guide (A quick and
to-the-point intro with some basics, this could be a template for other
millets)
* Singh, R.K., Muthamilarasan, M., Prasad, M. (2017). "Foxtail Millet: An
Introduction." In: Prasad, M. (eds) The Foxtail Millet Genome. Compendium
of Plant Genomes. Springer, Cham.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65617-5_1 or
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320536530_Foxtail_Millet_An_Introd…
(So you want more than a Wikipedia article? This introductory chapter from
a book on foxtail millet has a lot of information.)
* González-Rabanal, B., Marín-Arroyo, A.B., Cristiani, E. et al. (2022)
"The arrival of millets to the Atlantic coast of northern Iberia."
Scientific Reports 12, 18589 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23227-4 (Evidence from the western end
of Eurasia about ancient cultivation of foxtail and proso millets that came
from East Asia. Millets are really ancient crops, with foxtail millet being
perhaps the oldest.)
In the attached image, the left hand part was seen on two sites:
https://www.chenabgourmet.com/youll-never-believe-how-millets-can-save-the-…
&
https://agronfoodprocessing.com/from-farm-to-table-the-journey-of-millets-i…
. The right hand part is a stock photo.
Don Osborn, PhD
(East Lansing, MI, US)
North American Millets Alliance
