Ragi: A boon for Diabetics

With its nutritional benefits, ragi comes across as a health food one can bank upon. If you are exploring for a healthy breakfast alternative and do not know which cereal or whole grain to look up to, you can think of ragi or finger millet as one of the options. Including ragi will not only let you experience different taste but also different texture. While whole grains like wheat, oats and brown rice come across as other health food options, ragi occupies its unique place.Evidences are available to advocate the effective role of millets in the management of diabetes mellitus. However, as of today, there is little public awareness on the use of millets. The availability of food products for diabetic subjects in Indian market is almost negligible. Diabetics are advised to take a balanced diet. The selection of foods is reccomended to be from all food groups with preference to low glycemic index (GI) foods. In general, foods such as legumes and millets have low GI. Finger millet is a good source of non-available carbohydrate. This property along with high levels of minerals like chromium, zinc, copper and magnesium make the finger millet suitable for consumption by diabetics.