**7. Other Gramineae**

Gramineae, or Poaceae, is a family of plants that includes most of the cereal grains (*e.g.*, wheat, rice, corn, sorghum, barley, millet, rye, triticale), bamboos, grasses used for pastures and lawns, and sugarcane for sugar and ethanol production. This is a very diverse family with several uses for humans and animals. Since most of the cereals and the grasses for pastures and lawns are well studied, we will not cover those uses in this chapter. While some bamboo species are used in North America and Europe as an ornamental plant, in Asia, it is a commonly used construction material [94]; however, those uses are beyond the scope of this chapter.

From a nutrition perspective, cereals are an important food source for humans and other monogastric animals. Most commonly, the grains and their various components are used to produce foods for humans and animals. The stalks of the plant are usually left in the fields or burned to produce energy. Another Gramineae largely used by humans is sugarcane. Most of it for the production of sugar and ethanol. Other than these mainstream products limited research is available describing their use in monogastric animals. Specifically, [32] evaluated the use of sugarcane fiber (a co-product of the extraction of the sugarcane juice) as a fiber source for dogs. Compared to wheat bran, sugarcane fiber addition (9% inclusion) decreased the specific mechanical energy necessary to produce the food and increased the cutting force necessary to cut the kibble. When this diet with sugarcane fiber was fed to dogs they preferred the control (no fiber added) diet [27]. As noted previously, this was expected since addition of fiber ingredients generally reduce food palatability.
