The United Nations (UN) has proclaimed May 22 ‘The International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB)’ to increase understanding and awareness of Biodiversity issues. IDB identified the year 2019 to focus on biodiversity as the foundation for our food and health and as a key catalyst to transform food systems and improving human well-being with the theme “Our biodiversity, Our food, Our health”. UN recognized various aspects like Reduce your meat consumption, Eat and purchase seasonal food, Buy local food, Reduce your food waste, Compost your food scraps, Reduce food packaging by using reusable bags or reusing glass jars or containers, Avoid single use plastics like plastic straws, coffee cups, plastic cutlery, take our containers or plastic water bottles, Promote local and indigenous biodiversity for food and nutrition.
MSSRF organized international day for biological diversity through enriching the taste buds with plant biodiversity around us. The programme conducted on ‘Annam Oushadham ‘ with Dr. Sajeev Kumar, collected the plants from our surrounding and prepared a feast along with the participants of the session.
It consisted of 12 nutritionally rich, healthy delicacies which surprised the mind and thoughts. The participants included students, general public, researchers, scientists, community and anganvadi representatives. The session described on nutritional value of each delicacies. Interactive session had an active discussion on the medicinal as well as the nutritional value of the ingredients in our visibility but remain unnoticed. It’s a vision on how food is our health and biodiversity can effectively contribute to it.
The feast was rich with dishes made of hibiscus leaf, hibiscus flower, banana stem, banana leaves, ashgourd seeds, ashgourd pulp, ashgourd skin, bittergourd leaves, ginger, tamarind, cinderella weed, balloon wine plant leaves, creeping wood sorrel and cleome.