Maize: an underexploited golden cereal crop

Kaushal, Manisha and Sharma, Ruchi and Vaidya, Devina and Gupta, Anil and Saini, Harpreet Kaur and Anand, Anupama and Thakur, Chahat and Verma, Aastha and Thakur, Manisha and Priyanka, and KC, Dileep (2023) Maize: an underexploited golden cereal crop. CEREAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS, 51 (1). pp. 3-14. ISSN 0133-3720 (print), 1788-9170 (online)

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Abstract

People are focusing more on gluten free food products with minimal production costs. Maize is one of the major cereal crops and provides up to 30 per cent of food calories to 4.5 billion people in the world. Maize was the first plant cultivated by farmers 7000–10,000 years ago in Mexico and later spread to various parts of the world. Maize is generally classified according to its colour, which ranges from white to yellow to red to black. Another major categorization is based on the size and composition of the endosperm containing an appreciable amount of carbohydrates (66.2%), lipids (3.6%), proteins (11.1%) and vitamins and minerals (3.6%) along with fibres (2.7%). Unfortunately, maize is deficient in two major amino acids, namely tryptophan and lysine and also minerals like iron and zinc and vitamin B12. Due to a good nutritional profile, a high proportion of maize grains is processed industrially for transforming into value-added products by three basic methods:- wet milling, dry milling and nixtamalization that enhance shelf stability of the product by preventing the hydrolysis of lipids. This review hopes to facilitate the feasibility of maize incorporation in various food products prepared from other cereal crops and its impact on quality and shelf life with a prime objective to spread awareness regarding nutritional qualities as an alternative to wheat or rice.

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