Nutritive Value of Cereals

Cereals form the most important class of foods in the Indian dietary. They know the importance of Cereals. Rice, wheat, maize, bajra, jowar, ragi and other millets belong to this category. Cereals are the cheapest source of energy and form the backbone of our food supply. Energy is measured in units called calories and each calorie represents the heat required to raise one kilogram of water by one degree centigrade and is 1000 times the ordinary calorie used in physics. We can get upto 350 calories from 100 grams of cereals. With the average diet containing about 400-500 grams of cereals, the contribution of calories from cereals alone is about 70-80 percent of the total calories required.
Cereals are rich in carbohydrates but relatively poor in fat. They provide about 6 to 12 percent of protein, rice being the poorest and wheat, the richest in this respect. The millets like bajra, jowar and ragi occupy an intermediate position. However, if one considers the quality of the proteins in terms of what the scientists call biological value- a measure of the extent to which the protein is capable of being assimilated and utilized for growth and repair of tissues in the body-it will be found that rice proteins almost approach in value good quality animal proteins like milk and egg. Wheat proteins are not as good. The proteins of the millets are superior to those of wheat but inferior to those of rice. To get the best type of protein in the diet, it is often desirable to consume a mixture of cereals along with pulses. Diets based predominantly on a single cereal are much poorer in nutritive vale. In general, proteins derived from vegetable foods, especially pulses in the uncooked state, are less digestible than animal foods.