Abstract

India is among the countries where childhood malnutrition is severe. Central India, which constitutes mainly of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and its adjoining area, holds 23% of the total population of the country. Madhya Pradesh is situated in heart of India and has largest concentration for tribal population which is about 9.68 millions which is confined to the southern part of the state. The project analyses the health and nutritional status of tribal children in Jhabua and Dhar districts of Southern Madhya Pradesh. Tribal groups of these districts possess a great deal of knowledge on the various plant resources. The main objective of this work was to support research on viable approaches for the sustainable production and processing of indigenous alternative food plants to improve the health status of the tribal children. For the present study, six plant species were selected viz., Oxalis corniculata Linn., Moringa oleifera Lam., Cassia fistula Linn., Cassia obtusifolia Linn., Amaranthus viridis Linn. and Abutilon indicum Linn. We compared the average nutritional values of various plants parts viz., leave and seeds to ensure their role to combat malnutrition. Besides nutritional properties, anti-nutritional properties of the same plants were also studied, which included estimation of total alkaloids, tannins and phenolics. Our work focused on encouraging the women of targeted tribal population to actively engage in learning the methods of sustainable cultivation of these plants and use them in their daily food to enhance their as well as their family’s overall health status. The tribal women were trained with the help of field exercises to cultivate these alternative food plants, whose nutritional status and phytochemistry was established with the help of laboratory exercises.