Read: 3188, From 2015-10-05 08:16:17

Nutrition is the science of food. The nutrient and other substances there in, their action, interaction and balance is related to health and diseases. Nutrient are grouped into six classes namely carbohydrate, fats, proteins, vitamins, mineral and water. These all are essential things which are found in plant and animal sources. Plants are the principal source for getting such important components. Human beings have been obtaining these food components of plant and animal sources from early civilization, and also learned the process of consuming them called “Traditional food systems”. Some edible plant parts are very palatable but some are toxic, tannic or bitter. In this context they developed natural detoxification process to make them edible. Among the edible plant species, wild cucurbits are important and common in remote areas. In Odisha, there are numbers of wild cucurbits are available which are used as food by rural and tribal communities. The most common edible wild cucurbits are C. grandis, T. cucumerina, L. acutungala, L. cylendricca, C. melo, S. amplexculis etc. All the edible parts of plant contain rich nutritional values.  Misra and Misra (2014) reported the edible root of S. amplexicaulis used in Odisha whereas Prusti and Behera (2007) documented the traditional food values of Cucumis species of Sundargarh district of Odisha. Pani et al. (2010) documented that cucurbits of Odisha is used specially L. actungula, T. diocea, M. charchantia, M. diocea are used as food in different parts of Odisha.