Costing whole grain millet rice based diet …

When I talk about millets with those exploring better food options, a common concern expressed is the cost factor. “I am totally convinced from nutritional, environmental and social justice perspectives, but it is too costly. Not affordable.” It is a valid concern. Lets crunch the numbers on this …

Millet rices have a high satiety index, especially whole grain (unpolished) millet rices (wgmr). One feels more full on eating a smaller quantity of cooked wgmr than when eating the same quantity of polished paddy rice (ppr), or even whole grain (unpolished) paddy rice for that matter. But for now, lets look at how much it costs to serve a wgmr based meal as compared to a ppr based one.

Kodo millet rice, cooked using a pressure cooker.

In a meal, I eat about 300 to 400 gms of cooked wgmr. When I have a ppr based meal, I eat 400 to 600 gms before I feel full. Millets are thirsty grains and cooking wgmr takes more water than cooking ppr – 1:3 for wgmr as compared to 1:2 for ppr. So for a meal, I need at the most 400gms/4=100 gms of wgmr (dry, uncooked) and 600gms/3=200 gms of ppr  (dry, uncooked). In BLR good quality wgmr will cost me about Rs. 100/kg and decent ppr would be about Rs.40/kg. So my cost per meal for wgmr is therefore Rs. 100*(100/1000)=Rs. 10 as compared to Rs. 40*(200/1000)=Rs. 8 for ppr.

This is just from sheer quantity and cost perspective. Factoring in the difference in nutrition that the two meals would provide, the cost of wgmr is already justified. But wait, there is yet another factor that needs to be taken into account.

Again, purely from the quantity perspective, almost everyone who has eaten wgmr based meals share this experience that even after 4 hours of the meal, they typically do not feel hungry for a snack. The same individuals after eating a ppr based meal would be seeking out something to snack on as they touch the 3 hours mark since their meal. This is primarily because of the high fibre (and small carbohydrate to fibre ratio) of wgmr. But from a purely financial perspective, just the ingredients cost of a snack would be anywhere from Rs. 3 to 5. Adding this to the above, when we have a wgmr based meals, I would incur an expense of Rs.10 before I get to the next meal, while on days I eat ppr based meals, I would incur an expense of Rs. 11 before I get to the next meal.

Q.E.D.

Please see some tips on cooking wgmr here to improve the experience of cooking and eating wgmr based dishes. And just search for ‘millets buy the-place-where-you-live’ online and you will find a whole list of online and real world stores where you can buy millets. Do call and check with them if the millet rices they sell are the whole grain (unpolished) kind before you decide to make the purchase.

Whole grain (unpolished) millet rices are not just good for our health, they are good for our pocket books too !!