Background: Diabetes is a growing challenge in India with estimated 8.7% diabetic population in the age group of 20 and 70 years. Millets are one of the oldest foods known to humans and they are found to have high nutritive value than wheat and rice. Millets are recommended to diabetics as they are rich in fibre and have low GI.
Objective: The objective of the study is to develop Ready -To- Cook (RTC) food mixes using little millets and study its quality parameters and determine its in-vitro glycemic response.
Methods: The little millet was processed as sooji, flour and grits. After several trails from 50% to 100% replacement of millet fractions with cereals, three highly acceptable variations 60%, 70% and 80% was selected for the formulation of food instant mixes. Above three variations in each product namely upma, kichadi, noodle, pongal, and soup mix, totally 15 variations were developed and used for further analysis. All the mixes were analyzed for its nutritional organoleptic, textural properties and storage studies using standard procedure. All the variations of millet mixes were analyzed for in-vitro glycemic responses.
Results: The results concluded that the 60% little millet incorporated upma, kichadi, soup mix and 80% little millet incorporated noodles was highly acceptable comparable with standard products and commercial products. The texture of the developed mixes was well defined in hardness, cohesiveness, stickiness etc. Keeping quality of the little millet incorporated mixes was found to be good.
Conclusion: All the developed ready-to-cook food mixes of both the millets were found to be in low and medium glycemic index range, which confirms its suitability in the management of diabetes.