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In India, maize is consumed in the form of boiled or roasted as popcorn. In countries like South America, Central America and Africa, it is converted into food products by grinding, alkali processing, boiling, cooking and fermentation.

It belongs to the genus Hordeum. In India, barley is grown mostly in the northern parts of the country.

Rye belongs to the genus Secale. This is an important food crop in eastern Europe. Rye crop is grown in India over a very limited area in the north-western Himalayan area.

Oats, Avena Sativa is one of the most nutritious cereals. The chief oats-producing countries in the world are USA, Russia and Canada.

Rice starch: Rice starch granules are quite small and are embedded in a protein matrix. To separate them from protein, broken rice is steeped for 24 hours in 5 times its weights of 0.3 per cent caustic soda.

Rice contributes to 43 per cent of total food grain production and 46 per cent of total cereal production.

It contains the finely ground bran, germ and endosperm of the whole kernel. Whole wheat products have a distinctive flavour and coarser texture than those made from white flour.

India produced 72.8 million tonnes of wheat during 2003. Wheat belongs to the genus triticum and there are 30,000 species.

Cereals are the main source of energy, contributing 70-80 per cent of the requirement. Hundred grams give more than 340 kcal of energy.

The overall structure of all cereal grains is basically similar differing from one cereal to another in detail. The percentage of endosperm, germ and bran of cereal are 83, 1 AVi and 2Vi, respectively.