Polished millets lose much of their benefit, Indian scientists warn

A group of Indian nutrition and diabetes researchers has warned that the millets many families buy as a healthy, traditional alternative to rice may have lost much of what makes them healthy. In a viewpoint published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research and reported in the first week of October 2026, scientists from the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) in Chennai, the ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research (ICAR-IIMR) and the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN), both in Hyderabad, say that polishing millets removes the bran and germ. They argue that this makes the grain nutritionally poorer and could push up the blood sugar load of Indian diets, much as the shift from hand-pounded to polished white rice did.

Millets such as ragi, jowar, bajra, foxtail and kodo have long been part of Indian cooking, and in recent years they have been marketed heavily as "nutri-cereals" and as a better choice for people with diabetes. Shoppers who pay a premium for these grains expect the fibre and minerals that whole millets carry. The researchers' point is simple: much of that value sits in the outer layers, and polishing removes it.

The comparison with rice is central to their argument. Rice research cited by the authors found that even lightly polished white rice produced a higher blood sugar response than brown rice. The authors caution that millets could go down the same road if consumers come to prefer the softer, whiter polished versions.

The evidence has limits, and the authors acknowledge it. Direct studies comparing the blood sugar response to polished and unpolished millets are still few, so much of the warning rests on what is known from rice. A related earlier study in the same journal also found that even unpolished little and foxtail millet, when cooked as whole grain, gave high glycaemic index values. Millets are therefore not a free pass for people managing diabetes; portion size and the rest of the meal still matter.

For readers who turn to millets as part of a traditional way of eating, the message is that the form of the grain matters as much as the grain itself. The viewpoint suggests that a heavily polished millet sold in a neat packet may not deliver what the whole grain does.

Short-term: Shoppers can look more carefully at the millets they buy. A nutrition scientist from ICMR-NIN has said polished and unpolished grains can often be told apart by colour, and sometimes by texture.

Long-term: If regulators act on the authors' call, packets may have to state whether millets are polished before carrying whole-grain or diabetes-friendly claims, and processors may face pressure to offer lightly milled versions.

Who is affected: People with diabetes or prediabetes who have switched to millets, families who buy packaged millets, millet processors and brands, and public programmes that serve millets in meals.

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