Cereal Based Beverages for Nutrition Security: An Integrative Review

Whole grains are processed in different ways to make diverse products that are considered as nutritious and healthier. Nutrition security ensures consistent access, availability, and affordability of foods and beverages that promote well-being of people. Cereals plays crucial role to secure global nutrition security. Cereal grains such as rice, wheat, maize, sorghum and buckwheat are rich in bioactive phytochemicals, in addition to being major staple crops and primary sources of energy and nourishment to human body. Bioactive phytochemicals such as phenols, flavonoids, carotenoids and tannins with potent antioxidant capacities, dietary fibres, resistant starch, and phytic acid, which highlight potential application in processing grains into functional beverages having health promoting functional properties. Despite the fact that a range of cereal grain-based beverages are manufactured across the world, they have received very lesser scientific recognition and technical attention. Grain-based functional beverages have been divided into several categories such as non fermented grain-based and grain-based milk substitutes, fermented non-alcoholic grain beverages. The aim of this review was to discuss the processing techniques, health benefits, problems and future prospects of cereal grain-based beverages which might be a potential new category of functional beverages demanding by food industry.