Phytoceuticals in Food for Health and Wellness: Chapter 38 - Phytochemicals in tribal food and medicine

This chapter delves into the small plant compounds that indigenous tribes use in their diet and medicine. These compounds, known as phytochemicals, are found in plants that have long been essential to tribal existence. They are considered to be an ancient medicine against some critical conditions such as snake bites and other infections among tribal communities. We will look closely at these small compounds, such as flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, terpenoids, polyphenols, and other secondary metabolites to understand how they function in humans as a potential drug. We hope to demonstrate how tribal wisdom about using plants for health is more than just tradition; it is a clever use of nature's medicine by comprehending how these plant chemicals interact with our biology. This chapter provides a new perspective on how these plant-based phytochemicals improve our ethnopharmacology and well-being by focusing on the science underlying the therapeutic properties derived from indigenous foods and medicines of several tribes across the globe, as well as covering the ethnobotany of phytochemical-rich plants especially those used as food due to their high nutritional values.