Health Sutra conducts a oneday symposium on innovation in ancient grains to suit modern lifestyle

In the last few years, the awareness of Millets, their nutrition benefits and how they can help consumers combat lifestyle diseases has increased. However, 34% of people who are aware of Millets and their benefits have never tried cooking these grains because they think Millets are very cumbersome to cook and they don’t taste good according to a market study that was conducted in Hyderabad and Bangalore with 350 respondents. The same study revealed that42% of the people who tried Millets lapsed out within 6 months; reason being difficulty to make recipes that suit their family’s eating habits and tastes.

Increasing income levels, hectic work schedules, diminishing culinary skills and modern lifestyle is making people prefer foods that are easy to prepare and consume. The homemaker is preferring to use RTC products to cut down her cooking time and help her make more variety of dishes. In urban India 26% families are double income households who are pressed for time and are looking for easy food options leading to higher demand of RTC and RTE segments. Therefore to introduce these ancient grains back into the mainstream, Millets need to be made available in fun, tasty and easy to cook products that are convenient to use for the modern consumer to replace their daily diet needs with Millet based healthy alternatives.

To discuss the challengesof modern lifestyle and the need for innovative food formats to revive Millets consumption, a Symposium with the theme “Innovations in Ancient grains – Millets, to suit Modern lifestyle” was conducted on 21st July, 2019 at Katriya Hotel &Towers in Hyderabad. The guest speakers at the event were Dr.Dayakar Rao (Principal Secretary, IIMR; CEO –Nuti Hub); Mr.M.C.V Prasad (Founder, Prakrutivanam), Dr.Uma Devi (Professor, College of Home Science, PJTSAU), Dr.J.Lakshmi (Professor, Food & Nutrition, ANGRAU), Mr.Ram Babu (Eminent Millets Chef) and Mr.Sai Krishna Popuri (CEO & Founder, Health Sutra).

With speakers from varied professional backgrounds, the event saw valuable discussions on the way ahead for Millets in the modern world. “Continued efforts are being put to innovate technologies tomake millet based products in emerging food formats”, said Dr.Dayakar Rao. “Challenges of the Modern lifestyle can be effectively combated using Millets” said Dr. Uma Devi.  Mr.M.C.V Prasad pointed out that “Millets helped our ancestors stay physically and mentally fit and can help present generation fight lifestyle diseases like Thyroid and Diabetes”.

Health Sutra’s CEO Mr.Sai Krishna Popuri said that keeping the needs of modern consumer in mind, we have crafted a range of 100% Millet products that are natural, healthy, tasty and easy to use.Health Sutra’sMillets product range includes Flakes, Wheat free 100% Millet Biscuits, Idly & Upma Rawas, Health Mix, Instant Ragi Buttermilk Mix and Diet Namkeens. By using these products, the modern consumer can easily reintroduce Millets into their diet without changing their eating habits.