Abstract:The rice, sorghum, ragi and green gram are some commonly used but very nutritious ingredients of many food products. The combination of cereals and pulses forms complete food for human beings. The combinations of these four ingredients can be used to improve specific or overall quality of diet or processed products. Each of the selected material has some nutritional advantage and the use of various combinations of them can help to reduce problem of malnutrition.
The locally available varieties of selected materials were collected from the local market of Marathwada region of Maharashtra and analysed methodologically by using standard AOAC (2005) methods and proximate analysis of samples was carried out.
The study was carried out to evaluate proximate chemical and mineral composition of raw rice, sorghum, ragi and green gram and then values are compared to decide which ingredient is richest for a nutrient. Obtained results showed that rice and sorghum have highest carbohydrates as 79.6% and 74.4% respectively and Green gram has highest protein content 22.74% and ash as 3.98% among taken samples. Whereas ragi has highest crude fibre in amount 4%. But all have fat content varying between 0.4 to 1.8%. When major minerals were analysed, sorghum is found as richest source of phosphorous, potassium, magnesium and sodium as 532mg/100g, 566mg/100g, 208mg/100g and 32mg/100g respectively. Ragi proved as richest source of calcium, manganese and iron as 351mg/100gm, 5.92mg/100g and 3.88mg/100g respectively and green gram has highest iron as 9.53mg/100g as compared to other 3 samples. Rice found poor source of all minerals.