Importance of Underutilized Fruits

'Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience fully' said famous British actor Stephen Fry. Tropical countries like India are blessed with a variety of fruits and vegetables that they naturally grow and produce.

Fruits like mango, apples, banana, guava, citrus fruits, are available in plenty due to their distinct flavor and taste. These fruits also constantly enjoy the attention of organic scientists and horticulturists and are further improved in their quality. However, fruit lovers and the common man should also remember that there are other fruits too that are sometimes termed as "underutilized fruits" that are hundred times more nutritious than the popular fruits in terms of their vitamin C, carotenoids, and antioxidants. Also, they are inexpensive and are easily available.

The Lesser Known Fruits with High Nutrition Value

Some of these too have a distinct flavor and taste and these are easy to grow even under harsh conditions as compared to exotic fruits like apples, mangoes, kiwis, cherries, grapes and their hybrids.

The underutilized fruit plants are also naturally disease-tolerant and are adapted to hot, hardy climate conditions very much in sync with equatorial climate conditions. In India, they are found locally in the dry regions of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. Some of them are confined to natural wild and semi-wild arid zones.

In India, Underutilized Fruits are found in Rajasthan

Although, the nutritional value of the majority of the forest foods is not precisely known, most of them which have been researched have been found to be a storehouse of nourishment.

There are various obvious reasons for the underconsumption of underutilized fruits. -

Most indigenous fruit trees are not commonly cultivated on the farm and there is scant and dispersed knowledge about their fruits and their nutritive value
People prefer to have fruits with good taste since wild fruits have high levels of unpleasant tasting tannins and glycosides
Indigenous fruits are neither large nor fleshy and contain lots of seeds
The fruits are highly perishable and difficult to store in the fresh form
Most wild fruits are not really easy and handy to eat
Some fruit species are not acceptable as fresh fruit because of high acidity and/or strong astringent taste
Most of them are often available only in the local markets and are rarely known in other parts of the country

On the contrary, the benefits of such underutilized fruits far exceed their limitations.

They are cheap and highly nutritious.
They have known medicinal and therapeutic properties and are used by the local people to cure various diseases.

Underutilized Fruits have Medicinal and Therapeutic Properties & Cure Various Diseases

Many of them, the fruit, seed, leaf of the plant are used as curative foods in the traditional Indian Medicine and Ayurveda. For example, amla is used for treating diabetes, bael fruit for beating the heat, bael leaf for diabetes, and ber and phalsa being highly rich in vitamin C are used in cases of vitamin C deficiency.
In addition, some have an excellent flavor and taste and are used for preparing delicacies at home. eg. Ber, matira, pickles made of lasora, or dishes made with ker, sangri, kachri, and kumat in Rajasthan.

Nutrient Value of Some Underutilized Fruits (per 100 grams)

Fruit	Protein (g)	Fibre (g)	Calcium (mg)	Phospho -rous (mg)	Iron (mg)	Vitamin A (IU)	Vitamin C
*Underutilized Fruits*
Hingota (Balanites aegyptiaca) Ripe fruits eaten raw or sun dried and stored as dates	4.9	3.5	147	58	4	-	46
Ker (Capparis deciduas) Shrub; fresh dried tiny unripe fruits used as vegetable, fresh red fruits eaten raw	5.9	12.3	153.8	50.8	2	-	133
Lasora (Cordia spp.) Fruit used as a veg or in pickles, ripe fruits freshly eaten	2	2	55	275	6	-	-
Sangri (Prosopis cineraria) Pods are locally called sangria; chocolate color, dried pods are eaten as a vegetable	23.2	20	414	400	19		523
Meetha Pilu (Salvadora oleoides) Fruits are red brown when ripe; eaten raw when ripe; can be cooked; dried and stored	6	2	6	76	8	-	-
Bael (Aegle marmelos) Fruit are small to large with a hard cover; pulp eaten or made in a fresh sherbet, bael leaves good for diabetics	1.8	2.9	85	31.8	0.6	91.6	1.1
Chironji (Buchanania lanzan) Fruit eaten raw; sweetish sub acidic flavor	7.3	5.2	-	-	-	-	2
Karonda (Carissa spp.) Immature fruits used as vegetable, mature fruits eaten raw. Fruits are processed as a pickle, jam, marmalade	1.1	1.8	21	28	-	1619	9-11
Aonla, Amla (Emblica officinalis) Fruit eaten fresh, processed and preserved	0.5	1.9 - 3.4	20	26	0.48	17	500-625
Phalsa (Grewia subinaequalis) Small tiny brown fruits; used to prepare a sherbet	1.3	1.2	129	39	3.1	800	22
Mahua (Mahua indica) Ripe fruits eaten raw or cooked	1.3	-	45	22	1.1	512	40.5
Khirni (Manilkara hexandra) Fresh fruits are very sweet and eaten raw as well as after drying	0.48	-	83	17	0.92	675	15.67
Manila tamarind (Pithecellobium dulce) Pulp consumed raw	2-3.3	1.1	13	42	0.5	25	138
Jamun (Syzygium cumini) Eaten as a fresh fruit Jamun seeds contain various alkaloids such as jambosin and glycoside which inhibits the conversion of starch into sugars	0.7	0.9	15	15	1.2-1.6	80	18
Tamarind (Tamarindus indica)	2	2.9	34-94	34-78	0.2-0.9	-	44
Ber (Zizyphus spp.) Eaten as a fruit	2	2	60	120	7	-	88
Common Fruits
Apple	0.2	1	10	14	1	-	1
Banana	1.2	0.4	17	36	0.9	78	7
Orange	0.7	0.3	26	20	0.3	1104	30
Papaya	0.6	0.8	17	13	0.5	666	57
Grapes	0.5	2.9	20	30	0.5	-	1
Mango	0.6	0.7	14	16	1.3	2743	16
Dates (dried)	2.5	3.9	120	50	7.3	26	3

Source: http://www.nbpgr.ernet.in/download/UUF-BOOK.pdf

http://www.academicjournals.org/jhf/PDF/pdf2009/Sept/Rathore.pdf

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