Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Young leaves and buds of wild paat saag (Corchorus olitorius) are harvested from an uncultivated agricultural field during the monsoon season. Credit: Nirali Bakhla
Women in rural eastern India improve their diet by eating wild foods growing in forests and common lands, especially before crops are ready for harvest, a study1 finds.
Securing access to forests and common lands that yield micronutrient-rich wild foods is crucial to enhancing the dietary diversity of undernourished people in vulnerable communities in India, researchers say.
They analyzed women’s food consumption data collected across 570 households in Palamu district in Jharkhand and Bankura in West Bengal, areas characterized by open scrub, tropical deciduous forests and uncultivated common lands such as woodlands and pastures.
Women relied on vitamin-A and iron-rich leafy green vegetables such as chakwar (Senna obtusifolia), jute leaf (Corchorus olitorius) and fruits and vegetables like hog plum, bottle gourd and bamboo shoots, especially during June and July, when crops are still in the field and stocks from the previous year are low.
The average dietary diversity scores were 13% and 9% higher, in June and July, respectively, among women who ate wild foods compared to those who did not.
“Biodiversity conservation policies should consider the importance of wild foods to health and well-being and protect indigenous and local communities’ rights to access forests and common lands,” says study co-author, Nathalie Lambrecht at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The research supports evidence that wild indigenous foods add to nutrition. “This evidence can support policies aiming to diversify Indian diets that are contextual and cost effective,” says Suparna Ghosh-Jerath at The George Institute for Global Health-India.
Ghosh-Jerath and her colleagues, who work with tribal communities in Jharkhand, found higher intake of wild green leafy vegetables, fruits and mushrooms during the rainy season strengthened women’s uptake of vitamin A, calcium, and iron. They also sun-dry several varieties of green leafy vegetables and mushrooms during monsoon and consume them in winter.
In Thuamul Rampur, a forested and tribal administrative block in Kalahandi district of Odisha, among the many forest foods consumed, the most important food items were mushrooms, mangoes, green leafy vegetables, bamboo shoot, various tubers and fruits, says Amrutha Jose Pampackal, a research scholar at Tata Cornell Institute of her fieldwork in the region.
Login or create a free account to read this content
Gain free access to this article, as well as selected content from this journal and more on nature.com
