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Importance of Underutilized Fruits and Nuts

  • Hosakatte Niranjana MurthyEmail author
  • Viswash Anant Bapat
Living reference work entry
First Online:
Part of the Reference Series in Phytochemistry book series (RSP)

Abstract

The plant wealth of nature is abundant with fruits and nuts which are widely utilized and exploited as supplementary food sources and also for the industrial products as well as for extracting the medicines. Simultaneously, natural plant products have been in use for human healthcare as drugs, antioxidants, flavors, fragrances, dyes, and insecticides. Plentiful of underutilized fruits and nuts (UFNs) are there in plant kingdom which have remained underexploited for a variety of reasons but contributed significantly in food sustainability, as ample sources of important phytochemicals, and have the potentiality for income generation as well as for maintaining the environmental balance. A wide range of products have been harvested from these UFNs which include safe-to-eat fruits, grains, leaves, nuts, roots and tubers, fibers, oils, medicines, spices, stimulants, and their derived products. In this chapter we present the importance of UFNs, their nutritional benefits, their bioactive compounds, and their other biological activities.

Keywords

Antioxidants Bioactive compounds Biological activity Nutrition Phytochemicals Underutilized fruits and nuts 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

HNM is thankful to DST-PURSE phase-2 program and UGC-BSR midcareer award grant [No. F.19-223/2018(BSR)]. VAB thanks the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), Allahabad, India, for the Honorary Scientist fellowship.

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© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

Authors and Affiliations

  • Hosakatte Niranjana Murthy
    • 1
    Email author
  • Viswash Anant Bapat
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of BotanyKarnatak UniversityDharwadIndia
  2. 2.Department of BiotechnologyShivaji UniversityKolhapurIndia

Section editors and affiliations

  • Hosakatte Niranjana Murthy
    • 1
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of BotanyKarnatak UniversityDharwadIndia
  2. 2.Department of Horticulture, Division of Animal, Horticultural and Food SciencesChungbuk National UniversityChenogjuRepublic of Korea

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