Make snacking healthy with millets    

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While we tell ourselves that ‘you live only once’, why not give healthy snacking a true shot for the same reason. While we tell ourselves that ‘you live only once’, why not give healthy snacking a true shot for the same reason. It’s not that bad, especially when we have exclusive millet restaurants and a startup in the city dishing out some scrumptious grub from this oh-so-healthy wholegrain. Millet bowl, a city-based startup that sells readymade or instant millet snacks and beverages in collaboration with Nestle R&D, has upped the healthy snacking game with some innovative products. KR Sanjay Kumar, the founder, says, “Today, we witness a growing demand for healthier, transparently sourced and produced sustainable foods for both the ageing population and millennials. Addressing the multiple nutrition insufficiencies, with people not getting enough time from their hectic schedules to prepare a healthy meal, we aim at filling the gap by providing affordable and convenient products. The idea is to use the superpower of millets from their agricultural perspective and for health benefits.” The startup provides a variety of snacks, including a flavoured protein shake and Soupy Khichidi made of millets. Hyderabad also has exclusive millet restaurants, where one will not be able to tell the difference between a dish made of millets and a regular one. Millet Marvel in Film Nagar has been promoting millets as an alternative to rice and wheat. Founded by Dr Bharath Reddy, cardiologist and actor, it serves millet onion rings, millet biryani, millet sambar and everything else made of the wholegrain. They are soon going to start a factory in association with the Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR), where they will manufacture millet noodles, batter, roti and snacks. “We put the word millets in the restaurant’s name as we want people to know that they are eating millets when they step into our outlet. We want to increase the awareness around the benefits of millets. Giving something worthwhile back to society is the aim behind starting this restaurant. If you continue eating polished white rice and wheat, you’ll end up taking medication from the early age of 35- 40,” says Dr Bharath. He says 2023 will be marked as the International Millet Year. “We are the first Indian platform to have a cloud kitchen format with ready-to-cook meals. We use rice bran oil, don’t use processed salt or sugar, keep away from veggies grown using chemicals and pesticides, and are trying to keep it natural. We also launched a millet kitchen at Apollo Hospital in Jubilee Hills on Thursday, a one-of-a-kind by a hospital which serves in-patient attendants,” shares Dr Bharath, who along with a few franchises approaching him, plans to take this pan-India. House of Millets, another exclusive millet food restaurant in Sainikpuri, has a ‘7 days 7 millets’ theme, where they serve food based on the theme of the day. “Every day, there is a different type of millet used in the breakfast, lunch and dinner spreads. For instance, on Monday, we make food made of jowar. When it comes to the curries, we don’t use onion or tomato paste. Instead, we use cashew paste and, when needed, watermelon paste,” says Prabhakar Rao, the founder.