Taiwan is introducing 18 wild vegetables with high nutritional values comparable to those of cultivated vegetables. These wild vegetables can provide important nourishments, such as protein, calories, mineral elements, and vitamins, and could be important sources of cellulose in food. Some of the wild vegetables are also found in India .
Indians have been eating wild vegetables for thousands of years, but unfortunately, we lost the track somewhere at the dawn of modern times.
Wild Vegetables that grow naturally without any cultivation or care are called wild vegetables. These plants mainly grow in forests, wilderness, edges of farmlands, and barren fields. Tribals and rural Indians still value these wild vegetables.
Maybe in near future Indian farmers will buy wild vegetable planting materials at high price from Taiwan same way Lady red Papaya , Taiwan guava , Vasudha water melon ,Rambha tomato , Kohinoor musk melon and grow as foreign vegetable in India .
- Allium hookeri ( Chinese leek / Hookers chives ) found abundantly in Northeast India
- Portulaca oleracea (Purslane, Pigweed, little hogweed, Fatseed etc. ) a succulent trailing plant often found thriving in the cracks of sidewalks and driveways even during summer’s heat. It often pops up in container gardens, flowerbeds, gardens, fields, waste ground and roadside.
- Hemerocallis fulva ( Orange Daylily , Ditch Lily ) is a ornamental garden plant , tuber , flower are edible
- Leea indica ( Dinda ,Bandocot Berry , Kurkur ) Tender shoots are cooked as vegetable
- Nasturtium officinale ( Water cress , Halon, Alive , Garden cress ) belongs to cabage family , grows wild along stream margins, river edges, ditches, and other shallow areas with cold, slow-flowing water
- Amorphophallus commutatus( Dragon Stalk yam , Shevala , Jungli suran ) grows wild in the western ghat area . ,