ABSTRACT
Cereal grains are the most important dietary energy source globally where wheat, rice, and maize provide about half of the dietary energy source for mankind. With a global increase in sedentary lifestyles and metabolic disorders (e.g., obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes), the relationship between the energy and nutrient composition of food products has become a major theme in the development of cereal-derived diet with a proper nutritional balance and useful functional attributes. Cereals as a major food supply for humanity contribute to the intake of several macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, dietary ber) and micronutrients (minerals, vitamins). However, they are quite low in fats (average 3%–5% in grains) lacking some essential polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and other lipophilic compounds (e.g., carotenoids). A diet based primarily on cereal grains might not only encourage an improper dietary equilibrium of these metabolites, but it may also nally lead to an increased incidence of various diseases resulting from an insufcient intake of PUFAs. Therefore, the availability of cereal types with proper compositional balance, the consumption of such cereal foods, and their contribution to a healthy diet should be the bottleneck to good nutrition. In all cases, a well-balanced compositional quality of cereals plays a “gate-keeping” role in providing cereal foods for consumers.
