MSSBG is in discussion with the Kerala State Biodiversity Board, CSIR-NIIST, Thiruvananthapuram, and Ayushgenome Research Foundation, Kochi for developing a value-chain for some of the promising wild food plants, in particular the wild edible greens. Wild food is excellent candidate for developing functional health value cuisines. Fresh or processed foods have health promoting and/or disease preventing property beyond the basic nutritional function. Scientific validation of the value of wild foods in terms of Nutrition, Resilience and health benefits to be done through an integrated approach.A study by MSSRF (Ratheesh& Anil 2012) has shown there are 434 flowering plants used by the tribal people of Wayanad of which 184 are of food use, 244 are of medicinal use, 7 species are used for extracting fibres and 68 plants are recorded for other uses like fish poisoning, magico religious, canes, resins and other Minor Forest Produces.MSSRF have collections of most of these Wild food and Medicinal plants in its Botanical Garden. Unfortunately, many of the wild food species have not been explored in a serious manner to establish their conservation value or nutrition richness, or climate resilience, or the future food character traits. There is high potential for developing wild foods for addressing the malnutrition problem of the forest dwellers, and to develop them for new bio-fortified foods.
Developing a new value chain for the sustainable use is already popular. But, the way to making this concept into a market success story requires quite a long journey demanding multi-stage processes involving experts from academic, regulatory and commercial fronts, as well as making the consumers satisfied with the health benefits, authentic evidences and safety aspects beyond simply the nutrition. This truth has led in developing the concept of “functional food” by Japanese in the mid 80’s to anchor on the traditional wisdom of “food as medicine”. A “functional food” is produced by simply incorporating an ingredient(s) proven to provide health benefits to humans into a conventional food already consumed in large quantities. These “base” foods are typically rice, bread, noodles, pasta, chapatti consumed by the majority of the world’s population. Today there are nearly 320 food products in Japan registered with the concept of Foods for Specified Health Use (FOSHU).
