In the 21st century, climate changes, water scarcity, increasing world population, rising food prices, and other socioeconomic impacts are expected to generate a great threat to agriculture and food security worldwide, especially for the poorest people who live in arid and subarid regions. These impacts present a challenge to scientists and nutritionists to investigate the possibilities of producing, processing, and utilizing other potential food sources to end hunger and poverty. Cereal grains are the most important source of the world's food and have a significant role in the human diet throughout the world. As one of the most important drought‐resistant crops, millet is widely grown in the semiarid tropics of Africa and Asia and constitutes a major source of carbohydrates and proteins for people living in these areas. In addition, because of their important contribution to national food security and potential health benefits, millet grain is now receiving increasing interest from food scientists, technologists, and nutritionists. The aim of this work was to review the recent advances in research carried out to date for purposes of evaluation of nutritional quality and potential health benefits of millet grains. Processing technologies used for improving the edible and nutritional characteristics of millet as well as challenges, limitations, and future perspectives to promote millet utilization as food for a large and growing population are also discussed.

Obesity and chronic diet‐related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancers, and celiac are increasing worldwide. The increasing prevalence of these diseases has led nutritionists and food scientists to pay more attention to the relationship between diet and different disease risks. Among different foods, rice has received increasing attention because it is a major component of billions of peoples’ diets throughout the world. Rice is commonly consumed after polishing or whitening and the polished grain is known a high glycemic food because of its high starch content. In addition, the removal of the outer bran layer during rice milling results in a loss of nutrients, dietary fiber, and bioactive components. Therefore, many studies were performed to investigate the potential health benefits for the consumption of whole brown rice (BR) grain in comparison to the milled or white rice (WR). The objective of this work was to review the recent advances in research performed for purposes of evaluation of nutritional value and potential health benefits of the whole BR grain. Studies carried out for purposes of developing BR‐based food products are reviewed. BR safety and preservation treatments are also explored. In addition, economic and environmental benefits for the consumption of whole BR instead of the polished or WR are presented. Furthermore, challenges facing the commercialization of BR and future perspectives to promote its utilization as food are discussed.