Ethnomedicinal antibacterial and antioxidant activities of two common wild tuberous plants of odisha

Abstract

Food and medicines are the basic human needs. Human civilization has been exploring and utilizing diverse plants and plant products for food and medicine from the ancient times. They acquired special knowledge for gathering food and medicines from nature. Although there are many resources in nature, human beings use about 120 crops for food but just nine of these supply over 75% of global plant derived energy intake (FAO, 2000).The world s biggest problem right now is to find enough food to feed the expanding population and to provide adequate medicines to rural and tribal people. There is a need to search for traditional therapeutic sources through field exploration to discover medico-food plants or Neutraceuticals from biodiversity. Such research can serve as a foundation for a healthy life. Research on these topics in many areas has shown that many wild resources are still used in local food cultures, which are inextricably linked to conventional medical practices. The concept of quotFood as Medicinequot of the primitive civilization translates to quotNeutraceuticalquot in the modern era. Neutraceutical solutions effectively combat a variety of ailments and diseases as well as malnutrition. The term quotneutraceuticalsquot refers to bioactive secondary metabolites found in food. It contain some anti-nutritional factor along with some bitter components. Different conventional methods are used to eliminate bitter components present in plants before using it as food. The rural and tribal communities prefer to use the nutraceuticals to fight against microbial infections too. Therefore, an attempt was made for a detailed study of two common wild tuberous plants which are used by aboriginals and rural people of remote areas of Odisha, India as food and medicines. Among the edible tuberous plants, two plants are selected (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius and Dioscorea esculenta) for study. 200 species of Amorphophallus make up the family Araceae. They are herbs with quotcorm,quot or bulb-like tubers. The vegetable Amorphophallus paeoniifolius,