THE STATUS OF PROCESSING AND PRESERVATION OF CEREALS IN NIGERIA

THE STATUS OF PROCESSING AND PRESERVATION OF CEREALS IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Of all the plant on which man has depended for his food, cereal grains are by far the most important.  Since recorded history, cereals grains are the seed by cultivated grasses that include wheat, corn, 0at, barley, rye, rice, sorghum and millet. There are a number of reasons why cereals have been important in man’s diet.  They can be grown in areas with diverse climatic and soil conditions.  They give yield peracre (0.4ha) as compared to most other crops and once harvested, their excellent storage stability combined with their high nutritive valuers make them most suitable for storage. They are easy to be packaged and transported and can be used to produce a large variety of high desirable foods both for man and animals.

Cereal grains are the most important source of the world’s total food.  The grains are eaten in many ways, sometimes as a paste or other preparation of the seeds more often milled and further processed into flour, starch, oil, bran, syrup, sugar, etc.  They are also used to feed the animals that provide us with meat, eggs, millet, butter, cheese and a host of other foods.  Cereals grains are preserved in ways which make them to last long for processing.