Processing methods can tame antinutritional factors in millets, review finds

Millets have earned a reputation as climate-resilient staple crops, and a new review examines the other side of that story: the antinutritional factors that can limit how much of their nutrition the human body actually absorbs. The article, published in Discover Food, describes millets as “Nutri Cereals” because of their substantial content of proteins, fiber, minerals, vitamins, and phytochemicals, and notes that wider use of millets as an alternative staple food could supply both macronutrients and micronutrients while helping to address food insecurity, malnutrition, and environmental degradation.

The review also catalogs the health-related properties attributed to millets, including anti-tumour, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-diabetic effects, which the authors link to the presence of various nutritional and bioactive compounds. But the same plants carry chemical defenses. According to the abstract, millets possess antinutritional factors such as tannins, phytic acids, enzyme inhibitors, polyphenols, saponins, and oxalates. These compounds limit the nutritional and functional properties of the grain and reduce the bioavailability of macro and micronutrients, meaning that a mineral-rich or protein-rich millet grain does not automatically translate into fully absorbable nutrition for the person eating it.

To counter those effects, the authors survey a wide range of processing interventions. The traditional techniques and mechanisms they highlight include leaching, enzymatic degradation, and thermal denaturation, three routes by which antinutritional compounds can be removed, broken down, or inactivated. Leaching can draw water-soluble antinutrients out of the grain, enzymatic degradation uses enzymes to split target molecules, and thermal denaturation uses heat to change the structure of heat-sensitive compounds such as certain enzyme inhibitors.

Beyond the conventional approaches, the review also covers advanced technologies that have been applied to millets: cold plasma, pulsed electric field, ohmic heating, irradiation, high-pressure processing, enzymatic assistance, and ultrasound assistance. These methods represent non-thermal or novel physical and biochemical treatments that the authors describe as tools to reduce antinutritional factors in millets. The stated goal of applying these techniques is to improve mineral absorption and protein digestibility in millet grains and millet-based products, so that the nutrients the grains contain become more available to the consumer.

The authors frame the review as a response to a gap in the literature. According to the abstract, 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. The present study therefore aimed to explore the potential processing methods to reduce the antinutritional factors of millets, positioning itself as a synthesis of what processing can achieve against tannins, phytates, and their chemical relatives.

The publication appears in Discover Food, a Springer Nature journal, and is published as open access, with the article released on 04 November 2026. The listed authors include Parashuram Patroti, Mahesh Mohan Shinde, Nishant Kumar, Payal Kardikar, and Priya Ayyar, with the article carrying a permanent DOI and being citable in its early-access form. The publisher notes that this version is subject to further edits and will be replaced automatically by the final Version of Record.

For readers weighing millets against other staples, the review’s central message is that the grains’ nutritional promise and their antinutritional burden are two sides of the same crop. The compounds that reduce bioavailability are identifiable and named, and the processing toolbox, from soaking and leaching through to cold plasma and ultrasound, is presented as the practical route to improving mineral absorption and protein digestibility. The abstract does not report new experimental measurements of nutrient uptake; instead, it consolidates the processing strategies that existing work has identified for reducing antinutritional factors in millets and millet-based products.

By mapping both traditional techniques and advanced technologies onto the specific antinutritional compounds found in millets, the authors aim to give researchers and food processors a clearer picture of how processing choices shape the nutritional and functional properties of these grains.

Subject of Research: Antinutritional factors in millets and processing strategies to reduce them

Article Title: Antinutritional factors in millets and their reduction strategies through processing

Article References: Patroti, P., Shinde, M. M., Kumar, N., Kardikar, P., & Ayyar, P. (2026). Antinutritional factors in millets and their reduction strategies through processing. Discover Food. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44187-026-01338-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44187-026-01338-5

Keywords: millets, antinutritional factors, phytic acid, tannins, food processing, mineral absorption, protein digestibility, cold plasma, ultrasound, nutri cereals, food security, Discover Food