22 juil. 2025

World Tour of Ancient Grains: Teff, Fonio, Millet

Millet is not a high-protein grain. According to the Swiss Food Composition Database published by the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, hulled millet contains 10.6 g of protein per 100 g, which supplies 11.9 % of its energy value. The legal threshold for writing ‘source of protein’ on a pack is 12 % under Annex 13 of the Ordinance on Food Information. Millet lands just below it. It also contains 3.8 g of fibre per 100 g, less than quinoa (8.3 g), oats (10.5 g) or amaranth (11 g).

What it does deliver, and this is far more interesting, is iron: 6.9 mg per 100 g, or 49 % of the nutrient reference value, almost twice quinoa and more than three times buckwheat. A 60 g portion of dry grain supplies 4.1 mg, or 30 % of the daily reference.

This page gives the measured values for these three grains and their direct competitors, explains why the iron on the label is not the iron you absorb, sets out the cooking times and ratios that actually work, and covers the gluten-free labelling rules that decide how they can be used.

What an ancient grain is, and what the term does not guarantee

The term has no regulatory definition. It appears neither in the Ordinance on Food Information nor in the authorised claims of its Annex 13. A pack marked ‘ancient grain’ is therefore subject to no particular control, unlike ‘gluten-free’, ‘source of protein’ or ‘high in fibre’, which all answer to numerical thresholds.

Botanically the grouping is equally loose. Teff (Eragrostis tef) and fonio (Digitaria exilis) are true grasses and therefore true cereals. Millet is not a species but a set of small grass species, including proso millet (Panicum miliaceum), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and several others. Quinoa and amaranth, often filed alongside them, are not grasses at all but pseudocereals, a subject covered on our page about proteins beyond legumes.

What the term does capture is a state of varietal selection: these species were barely touched by the intensive breeding of the twentieth century, which concentrated on wheat, maize and rice. That has well-documented agronomic consequences, notably drought resistance, but it says nothing in itself about the nutritional value of a portion.

The measured values, against what is already in your cupboard

The table below gives values per 100 g of raw grain. Millet, buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth and oat flakes come from the Swiss Food Composition Database; millet flour and sorghum come from the Ciqual 2020 table published by ANSES, since the Swiss database lists neither teff nor fonio.

Per 100 g raw	Millet	Quinoa	Buckwheat	Amaranth	Oat flakes
Energy	360 kcal	362 kcal	341 kcal	376 kcal	381 kcal
Protein	10.6 g	13.3 g	13.1 g	15.8 g	13.5 g
Protein share of energy	11.9 %	14.9 %	15.5 %	17.0 %	14.3 %
Fibre	3.8 g	8.3 g	5.8 g	11.0 g	10.5 g
Iron	6.9 mg (49 % NRV)	3.6 mg (26 %)	2.1 mg (15 %)	9.0 mg (64 %)	3.5 mg (25 %)
Magnesium	120 mg (32 %)	180 mg (48 %)	200 mg (53 %)	250 mg (67 %)	130 mg (35 %)
Zinc	2.9 mg (29 %)	2.9 mg (29 %)	1.6 mg (16 %)	3.7 mg (37 %)	3.2 mg (32 %)
Calcium	9.5 mg (1 %)	41 mg (5 %)	15 mg (2 %)	160 mg (20 %)	54 mg (7 %)

Three things stand out. Millet is the best of the five on iron and the weakest on fibre and protein. Amaranth dominates almost every line, including calcium, where it is the only one to reach the significant-quantity threshold of 15 % of the nutrient reference value per 100 g. And oat flakes, an ordinary cupboard staple, hold their own on every count except iron.

That last point deserves saying plainly: if your goal is more fibre and protein at breakfast, oats do the job for a fraction of the price. If your goal is iron, millet and amaranth have something oats do not.

For the two grains absent from the Swiss database, the Ciqual table gives per 100 g of millet flour: 354 kcal, 10.2 g of protein, 9.7 g of fibre, 3.8 mg of iron, 140 mg of magnesium and 3.1 mg of zinc. Whole raw sorghum shows 351 kcal, 10.6 g of protein, 6.7 g of fibre, 3.36 mg of iron and 165 mg of magnesium. Millet flour holds considerably more fibre than the hulled grain in the Swiss database, the difference coming down to the degree of hulling.

The iron on the label is not the iron you absorb

This is the most important nuance on this page, and the one articles about ancient grains almost always leave out. The 6.9 mg of iron in millet is non-haem iron, the form found in plants, absorbed far less efficiently than the haem iron in animal products.

A review published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research in 2026 notes that non-haem iron absorption depends heavily on the food matrix and on compounds present in the same meal, some acting as inhibitors and others as promoters. The main inhibitor in whole grains is phytic acid, which binds iron and zinc and makes them unavailable.

Fermentation reduces that phytate, and the effect is measurable. Work published in Food Science & Nutrition in 2025 followed the fermentation of injera doughs made from pearl millet over 168 hours: phytate was degraded by 91.3 % in the pure millet dough and by 98.2 % in a 1:1 millet and maize mixture. Germination produces a comparable effect: a study published in Heliyon in 2023 on two fonio varieties germinated for 24, 48 and 72 hours at 28 °C measured significant increases in protein, dietary fibre, most amino acids, minerals and protein digestibility, with simultaneous falls in phytic acid, tannins and saponins.

Does that settle the iron question? A systematic review published in Frontiers in Nutrition in 2026, carried out under the COST Action PIMENTO, examined eight human intervention studies on the subject and concluded that the results are inconclusive. Acute postprandial studies do show better bioavailability: a low-phytate white bread produced a two-hour rise in serum iron of 59 µg/100 ml against 30 µg/100 ml for a high-phytate wholemeal bread, and adding phytase increased absorption by 50 % for ferrous sulfate. But long-term trials did not improve ferritin, and in one case decreased it: in the low-phytate sourdough rye bread group, ferritin fell from 32 ± 7 to 27 ± 6 µg/L over twelve weeks.

The honest reading is this. The mechanism is solid and the phytate reduction is well measured. The benefit to long-term iron status is not demonstrated by the available trials. Soaking or fermenting remains useful, particularly for digestibility and flavour, but presenting millet as a solution to iron deficiency would go beyond the data. Plant iron absorption is covered on our page about essential amino acids and critical nutrients, and soaking technique on the page about soaking and sprouting.

Geographic variability, a factor nobody mentions

A study published in Nature in 2021 mapped the calcium, iron, selenium and zinc composition of staple cereal grains across most of the cereal production areas of Ethiopia and Malawi. The central result is that there is geospatial variation in these micronutrients that is nutritionally important at subnational scales, correlated with soil pH, soil organic matter, temperature, rainfall and topography.

The authors go further: for rural households eating locally sourced food, place of residence can be the largest single factor determining micronutrient intake from cereals, and these geographical effects can exceed the magnitude of interventions such as fortification.

What this means for a reader in Switzerland: a table value for teff or millet is an average covering a real and substantial spread depending on where the batch was grown. That does not make the figures useless, but it does rule out reasoning to the tenth of a milligram about a bag bought in a shop.

Teff: what is established and what is not

Teff is a grain native to Ethiopia and Eritrea, cultivated for millennia, whose main use remains injera, a fermented flatbread. It is the smallest cultivated grain in the world, which has one direct practical consequence: it cannot be hulled, so it is always eaten whole, bran and germ included. That is the structural reason for its mineral density.

A review published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences in 2025 describes teff as rich in macro and micronutrients, carrying bioactive compounds such as flavonoids and phenolic acids, and gluten-free, therefore acceptable for people with coeliac disease or gluten sensitivity.

That same review credits teff with lowering cholesterol, supporting heart health, stabilising blood sugar and strengthening bone density. Those statements need reading for what they are: conclusions of a narrative review, not results of controlled human trials. A review published in Foods in 2025 on ancient grains as functional foods is more explicit on this point and places well-designed human clinical trials and the standardisation of compositional data at the top of its future research priorities. In other words, the available literature describes composition and plausible mechanisms well, but the trials that would allow a clinical effect to be asserted do not yet exist.

In the kitchen, teff grain makes a porridge with three volumes of liquid to one of grain, over fifteen to twenty minutes on low heat. Teff flour works mainly in blends: on its own it gives dense, crumbly results, since traditional injera owes its texture to a two- or three-day fermentation rather than to the flour itself.

Fonio: the fastest cooking of the three

Fonio is a West African grain cultivated in Mali, Guinea, Senegal and Burkina Faso, known for its resistance to arid conditions and its short cycle.

Its main practical advantage is cooking time. Where millet and teff need fifteen to twenty minutes, fonio is ready in five, with barely more water than its own volume of grain. The method that works is to rinse, tip into simmering salted water, cover, kill the heat and let it swell for five minutes, then fluff with a fork. Too much water gives a compact mush, which is the most common mistake.

The germination study published in Heliyon in 2023 offers one directly usable finding: principal component analysis identifies germination time, rather than variety, as the key determinant of nutritional and techno-functional characteristics, with raw and 24-hour germinated grains showing similar attributes. In practice, if you sprout fonio, you need to go beyond 24 hours for it to change anything.

On amino acids, fonio is limited in lysine, like most cereals. That is not a problem as soon as the meal includes a legume, a subject covered in detail on our page about combining grains and legumes.

Millet: the iron, and the rest

Millet is the best documented of the three in composition databases, and its profile holds the most surprises relative to its reputation.

Its 6.9 mg of iron per 100 g make it the best common cereal on that count, ahead of quinoa at 3.6 mg and oats at 3.5 mg, and well ahead of buckwheat at 2.1 mg. A 60 g portion of dry grain supplies 4.1 mg, or 30 % of the nutrient reference value. It also clears the significant-quantity threshold for magnesium (32 % per 100 g), zinc (29 %) and phosphorus.

It does not clear it for calcium, at 9.5 mg per 100 g, or 1 % of the reference, the weakest of the five grains compared. And its 3.8 g of fibre per 100 g is less than half what quinoa gives. Its reputation as a high-fibre grain probably comes from confusion with wholemeal flour, which Ciqual measures at 9.7 g per 100 g.

A review published in Frontiers in Nutrition in 2026 on Indian millets adds a nuance rarely repeated: while it confirms the low glycaemic index, the absence of gluten and the bioactive compound content, it also notes that excessive consumption can produce goitrogenic effects and thyroid dysfunction. That review also gives fibre values by species, with pearl millet leading at 11.49 %, ahead of maize at 10.20 %, which shows the spread between species grouped under one name.

In practice: varying the species and not making millet the sole starch base of every meal is the sensible course, which is the general recommendation on starchy foods anyway.

Cooking: the ratios that work

The three grains do not cook the same way, and the water ratio matters more than the time.

Fonio takes one volume of water to one of grain, five minutes off the heat and covered. Millet takes two volumes of water to one of grain, fifteen to twenty minutes on low heat, then ten minutes resting covered. Teff grain takes three volumes of liquid to one of grain, fifteen to twenty minutes, and gives a porridge rather than separate grains.

Dry toasting before cooking is the technique that changes the result most for millet. Two to three minutes in a dry pan, until the grains give off a nutty smell, before adding the water. That avoids the pasty texture that puts most people off at their first attempt.

Cooked yield is about three times the dry weight for millet and fonio. A dry portion of 45 to 75 g, matching the starch portion in the Swiss dietary recommendations, therefore gives 135 to 225 g cooked. For millet that means 162 to 270 kcal and 3.1 to 5.2 mg of iron depending on the portion, or 22 to 37 % of the daily reference.

These three grains lend themselves well to batch cooking at the start of the week, using the same method as for legumes described on our page about batch cooking. Once cooked they keep for three days in a sealed container in the fridge.

Gluten-free: what the law actually says

All three grains are naturally free of gluten. That is not enough to make a product containing them usable by someone with coeliac disease, and the distinction is regulatory.

Article 41 of the Ordinance on Food Information sets two thresholds. The term ‘gluten-free’ requires that the gluten content not exceed 20 mg/kg in the food sold to the consumer. The term ‘very low gluten’ applies to foods made from specially processed wheat, rye, barley, oats or their crossed varieties, with a content not exceeding 100 mg/kg. Paragraph 3 specifies that foods under the first threshold may carry the statement ‘Suitable for people with coeliac disease’.

What matters here is that the threshold applies to the finished product, not to the botanical species. A bag of millet grown in rotation with wheat, milled in a shared mill and packed on a shared line can exceed 20 mg/kg without any deception being involved. For someone with coeliac disease, the only usable information is therefore the ‘gluten-free’ statement on the pack, not the name of the grain. Our guide to cooking without gluten, nuts or soy covers this logic, and our page on reading a food label covers the rest of the framework.

Oats deserve a separate mention: paragraph 2 of the same article requires that oats present in a ‘gluten-free’ product have been specially made, prepared or processed to avoid contamination by wheat, rye or barley.

In practice: what replaces what

These grains have genuine merit, but the useful question is not whether they are good. It is what they usefully replace.

Fonio replaces couscous and bulgur in a tabbouleh or as a side, with a shorter cooking time and no gluten. Cooked couscous in the Swiss database supplies 5 g of protein and 0.5 mg of iron per 100 g; fonio does better on iron without being superior on protein.

Millet replaces rice in a stew, a risotto or a stuffing, and it is the only one of the three swaps that brings a clear nutritional gain, on iron, magnesium and zinc.

Teff does not really replace a grain: it replaces a flour in a blend, or it makes a porridge. Treating it as a rice substitute leads to disappointment over texture.

None of the three replaces a legume. At 10 to 13 % protein and with a lysine-limited profile, these are sources of complex carbohydrate with a good mineral contribution, not protein sources. Confusing the two categories is the most frequent error in articles on the subject, and our complete guide to plant proteins gives the orders of magnitude.

Common mistakes

Treating millet as a high-protein grain. At 11.9 % of energy value it does not even reach the 12 % legal threshold that would allow ‘source of protein’ on a pack. Quinoa, buckwheat and amaranth all do better.

Assuming the iron on the label is the iron absorbed. Millet iron is non-haem and bound to phytate. Fermentation degrades that phytate by over 90 %, but the available long-term trials show no improvement in ferritin.

Cooking fonio like rice. One volume of water to one of grain, five minutes off the heat. Two volumes give a sticky mush.

Skipping the dry toasting of millet. Two minutes in the pan before adding water is the difference between separate grains and a purée.

Buying ‘gluten-free’ on the strength of the species. The 20 mg/kg threshold in Article 41 applies to the finished product. Someone with coeliac disease must read the statement, not the name of the grain.

Making millet the sole base of every meal. The 2026 review on Indian millets notes goitrogenic effects with excessive consumption. Alternating species remains the sensible course.

Counting on these grains for calcium. Millet supplies 9.5 mg per 100 g, or 1 % of the reference. Only amaranth, which is not a cereal, clears the significant-quantity threshold.

Depending on your situation

You are trying to raise your iron intake. Millet is the best choice among common grains, at 4.1 mg for a 60 g dry portion. Pair it with a vitamin C source in the same meal and soak or toast it, without expecting a measurable effect on ferritin.

You have coeliac disease. All three grains are suitable in principle, but buy packs carrying the ‘gluten-free’ statement, the only guarantee of the 20 mg/kg threshold.

You mainly want more fibre. Oat flakes at 10.5 g and amaranth at 11 g per 100 g do considerably better than millet at 3.8 g, and at far lower cost in the case of oats.

You are short of time in the evening. Fonio cooks in five minutes, which beats any pasta. That is its main argument, ahead of any nutritional one.

You are cooking for an unadventurous household. Start with toasted millet replacing rice in a dish people already like, rather than with teff, whose porridge texture and pronounced flavour take some getting used to.

What this page cannot tell you

Neither teff nor fonio appears in the Swiss Food Composition Database. The values quoted for those two grains come from the scientific literature and from the Ciqual table for millet flour and sorghum, which rules out a comparison as direct as the one between the five grains in the main table.

The Nature study establishes that the micronutrient composition of these grains varies strongly with where they are grown, with effects that can exceed those of a fortification intervention. Table values are therefore averages, and the real spread around those averages is substantial.

The reviews cited on teff and on ancient grains generally are narrative reviews, not controlled trials. They describe composition and plausible mechanisms; they do not allow a clinical effect in humans to be asserted, and one of them explicitly puts well-designed clinical trials at the top of its research priorities.

Finally, the fermentation and germination data come from laboratory experiments on specific doughs or grains. The phytate degradation rates quoted hold for those conditions and durations, and do not transfer mechanically to a shorter domestic preparation.

Frequently asked questions

Does teff really contain more iron than other grains? Teff is eaten whole because it is too small to hull, which explains its mineral density. Published values vary considerably with origin, however, the Nature study showing that growing location can be the leading determinant of iron, zinc, calcium and selenium content.

Is fonio really easier to digest? The germination study measures a rise in protein digestibility after sprouting, but no human trial compares fonio digestibility with that of another grain. Its fine grain and short cooking make the preparation light, which is not the same thing as a demonstrated superior digestibility.

Do these grains lower the glycaemic index of a meal? The review on Indian millets confirms a low glycaemic index for millets. The effect on a complete meal depends on the whole dish, on the fibre and fat present, not on the grain alone.

Should millet be soaked before cooking? Soaking reduces phytate and slightly shortens cooking. It is not essential, unlike with dried legumes. Dry toasting has more effect on the eating result.

Can you make bread from these flours alone? No, none of the three contains gluten, so none forms a network capable of holding fermentation gas. They work in blends, with a binder such as psyllium, a subject covered on our page about alternative flours.

Is millet better than quinoa? On iron, yes, at 6.9 mg against 3.6 mg per 100 g. On protein, fibre and magnesium, no: quinoa does better on all three. The choice depends on what you are trying to improve.

Do these grains grow in Switzerland? Millet is grown marginally in Europe, but teff and fonio are imported. If origin and supply chain matter to you, our page on ancient Swiss grains covers einkorn, emmer and spelt.

How long do they keep? Whole grain keeps for several months in an airtight container away from light. Wholemeal flours, which contain the germ and therefore fat, go rancid faster and are better kept in the fridge.