 As populations become urbanized in Africa, the change to a more Westernized diet has been associated with rise in obesity and related metabolic syndrome diseases. The current study shows that in the West African Sahel, these replacement starchy staple foods have fast gastric emptying compared to traditional sorghum and millet foods; and implies that the latter could be beneficial in lowering glycemic response, providing energy from a meal over a longer time, and providing a satiety effect. Knowledge of this attribute of sorghum and millet foods could be useful to improve their image in West African cities to increase their consumption and to improve markets for local smallholder farmers. 