Published Paper Details:

Abstract: Maintaining a nutritious diet is essential for human healthier life. Making poor food choices and consuming unhealthy meals are the main causes of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).Edible fruits including wild and commercially available fruits are rich source of nutritional contents. Most of the studies shows, rural people traditionally harvest wide range of leafy vegetables, roots, tubers, fruits from wild because of its taste, cultural uses, as food supplements or to tide over food shortage. The present study explored the nutritional status of the fruit of 10 wild and 10 commercial fruits by profiling their physical properties (color, taste and smell) and biochemical attributes such as carbohydrate, sugar, protein, and vitamins. The present work identified superior/identical nutritional status in terms in terms of color, odor, taste and Vitamin content in noncultivated indigenous forest species, i.e., Annona muricata, Annona squiamosa, Elaeocarpus serratus, Mangifera indica, Anacardium occidentale , Phyllanthus emblica , Ixora coccinea , Averrhoa carambola , Zizipus oenopolia and Syzygium jambos comparable to the cultivated fruits like Carica papaya, Passiflora edulis, Hylocereus undatus, Citrullus lanatus, Vitis vinifera, Actinidia chinensis, Malus pumila etc. The analysis indicate the scope of using wild edible fruits for dietary supplement since it has valuable ingredients as Iron, Sodium, Potassium and Calcium. Many other fruits of forest therefore need to be analyzed which could help in selecting promising species for inclusion in agro and farm-forestry and reforestation programme which have so far focused only on timber species. Wild fruit plantation not only improves food base for humans it helps in sustaining wild animals particularly herbivore and bird population. Further research on anti- nutrients and antioxidants of wild species would be useful in selecting nutritious fruits from wild resources of eastern India. Of particular importance are Annona muricata, Annona squiamosa, Elaeocarpus serratus, Mangifera indica, Anacardium occidentale, Phyllanthus emblica, Averrhoa carambola and Syzygium jambos that had significant level of micronutrient and minerals which are promising species for promotion as backyard planting especially farming systems suffering from crop loss, food shortage and chronic malnutrition.