Everyone knows millet is highly nutritious, but it seems that children in the south are not particularly fond of pure millet porridge. This is mainly because its texture is somewhat different from the rice porridge we usually eat, so we don't consume it often in our daily lives.
Here's a great trick: add a handful of millet when cooking rice porridge. The texture is no different from rice porridge, but you get the nutritional benefits of millet. The result is fantastic.
The nutritional value of millet
Millet is recognized as a nutritious grain. Because it doesn't need to be refined, it retains many vitamins and inorganic salts. The vitamin B1 content in millet can be several times that of rice; the inorganic salt content in millet is also higher than in rice. In the north, it is a tradition for women to use millet with brown sugar to nourish their bodies after childbirth.
Millet porridge is rich in nutrition and is known as "ginseng soup." The *Compendium of Materia Medica* says that millet "treats nausea, heat dysentery, and is beneficial to the dantian (an energy center in the body), replenishes deficiency, and opens the stomach and intestines." Traditional Chinese medicine believes that millet is sweet and salty, with effects such as clearing heat and quenching thirst, strengthening the stomach and removing dampness, harmonizing the stomach, and promoting sleep.
This is because millet has the highest content of tryptophan among grains. Tryptophan has a regulatory effect on sleep. Drinking millet porridge before bedtime can easily help one fall asleep peacefully.
Ways to eat millet
There are three ways to eat millet: making porridge, cooking it as rice, and grinding it into millet flour to be steamed. Each of these methods has its own unique flavor, but making porridge is the best. It can be mixed with various coarse grains to create porridges of different flavors, possessing excellent nutritional and medicinal properties.
Millet porridge has long been known as "golden porridge." Millet porridge is not only delicious but also rich and comprehensive in nutrition, with the effect of nourishing kidney qi and benefiting the waist and knees. It is truly a superior nutritional food.
What cannot be overlooked is the millet oil in the porridge. The top layer of the porridge has a delicate, viscous substance floating on it; this is the porridge oil. It has the effect of protecting the gastric mucosa and nourishing the spleen and stomach, making it most suitable for patients with chronic gastritis and gastric ulcers. Its nourishing power is excellent, equivalent to the nourishing effects of precious medicinal herbs like ginseng and prepared rehmannia root.
It should be noted that to obtain high-quality porridge oil, the pot used for cooking must be scrubbed clean and free of grease. It is best to cook it slowly over a low flame, and no seasonings should be added.