Sorghum

Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is known under a great many names: milo, guinea corn in West Africa, kafir corn in South Africa, dura in Sudan, mtama in eastern Africa, jowar in India and kaoliang in China. Sorghum is an ancient cereal grain and was collected 8000 years ago in Southern Egypt, in a place called Nabta Playa. Sorghum was domesticated in Ethiopia and Sudan and from there moved throughout all of Africa, where it remains an important cereal grain. (That's a picture of sorghum being grown in an Ethiopian field.) Sorghum likely traveled to India during the first millennium BC, taken as food on ships, and then continued to be disbursed along the silk trade routes. It most probably arrived in the Americas with slave traders from Africa in the 19th century. Today different varieties of sorghum are grown in Asia, including India and Micronesia, and in both North America and Latin America. Sorghum kernels vary in color from white and pale yellow to deep reds, purples and browns; white, bronze, and brown kernels are most common.

Health Benefits and uses of Sorghum are

• Nutrients : Sorghum may be cooked and served alone, popped, or used in porridges and breads. A 1-cup, 192-gram serving of sorghum is energy-rich, providing 650 calories, 48 percent of your recommended daily intake, or RDI, for carbohydrates, mainly complex carbohydrates, and 48 percent of your RDI for fiber. Sorghum is rich in thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and trace minerals such as iron, phosphorus and potassium. The color of sorghum varies from white to red to black, and the bran of dark-colored varieties is rich in compounds called phenolic acids, tannins, anthocyanins and policosanols.
• Cancer : The bran layers of pigmented sorghum varieties contain antioxidants that may help protect against cancer development.
  • Mortality from esophageal cancer in Shanxi Province, China, is lower in people who consume sorghum and millet flour than those who eat corn and wheat flour, according to an ecological study appearing in the April 1993 issue of the “International Journal of Cancer." An epidemic of squamous carcinoma of the esophagus possibly caused by fungi in South Africa might be due to a shift in consumption from sorghum to corn as a dietary staple, according to a review in a 2005 issue of “Medical Hypotheses.”
  • Compounds in sorghum called 3-Deoxyanthoxyanins (3-DXA) are present in darker-colored sorgums, and to a lesser extent in white sorghum. Scientists at the University of Missouri tested extracts of black, red, and white sorghums and found that all three extracts had strong antiproliferative activity against human colon cancer cells.
• Diabetes : Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) are increasingly implicated in the complications of diabetes. A study from the University of Georgia Neutraceutical Research Libraries showed that sorghum brans with a high phenolic content and high anti-oxidant properties inhibit protein glycation, whereas wheat, rice or oat bran, and low-phenolic sorghum bran did not. These results suggest that “certain varieties of sorghum bran may affect critical biological processes that are important in diabetes and insulin resistance.”
• Gluten-Free : If you cannot tolerate gluten or have frequent allergic reactions after eating foods made with wheat, oats, barley or rye, sorghum is a gluten-free alternative staple grain. Sorghum appears to be safe for patients with celiac disease, an autoimmune condition of the small intestine that is aggravated by gluten, as reported in the Dec. 2007 issue of “Clinical Nutrition." If you do substitute sorghum for other foods in your diet, do not rely too heavily on sorghum’s protein for contribution to your daily needs. Sorghum protein is poorly digested after cooking and is deficient in the essential amino acid lysine.
• Cholesterol : Scientists at the University of Nebraska observed that sorghum is a rich source of phytochemicals, and decided to study sorghum’s potential for managing cholesterol. They fed different levels of sorghum lipids to hamsters for four weeks, and found that the healthy fats in sorghum significantly reduced “bad” (non-HDL) cholesterol. Reductions ranged from 18% in hamsters fed a diet including 0.5% sorghum lipids, to 69% in hamsters fed a diet including 5% sorghum lipids. “Good” (HDL) cholesterol was not affected. Researchers concluded that “grain sorghum contains beneficial components that could be used as food ingredients or dietary supplements to manage cholesterol levels in humans.”
• Testosterone Booster : Studies have shown that sorghum helps amplify the expression of 5-alpha-reductase, effectively boosting DHT levels, which a 1996 study published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics says "is required for full masculinization of the external genitalia."