ABSTRACT
Wild edible plants (WEPs) refer to species that are neither cultivated nor domesticated, but are available from their wild natural habitat and used as sources of food. Since traditional knowledge on WEPs is being eroded through acculturation and the loss of plant biodiversity along with indigenous people and their cultural background, promoting research on wild food plants is crucial in order to safeguard this information for future societies. WEPs play a major role in meeting the nutritional requirement of the tribal population in remote areas. WEPs serve as supplementary food for non-indigenous people and are one of the primary sources of cash income for poor communities. Comparative studies on WEPs in different cultures ethnic groups of a country among different countries may contribute to the identification of the most widely used species for further nutritional analysis. The nutritional value of many forest foods is not known but appears to be enough information to indicate that forest foods are nutritionally valuable.
