Indian Seasonal Produce- September

National Nutrition Month 2020

National Nutrition Month (previously National Nutrition Week) is celebrated during the month of September in India every year to spread awareness about nutrition, nutritional needs and malnutrition.

A study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research in 2018 indicates that even though India has come a long way since 1947, its population still has a huge prevalence of nutritional deficiency of micronutrients like iron, iodine, calcium and vitamins A, B9 or folate, B12, C and D.

Here is the list of Fruits, Veggies, Grains and Sea foods in season this September month that give us the maximum health benefits needed to help us sustain all of the nutrition requirements the body needs, if cooked in a correct way. 

(Note: Read the list and know your local produces and consume them)

And officially we are entering the Kharif season, also called as Monsoon crops/ Rainfed crops. The crops sown in June- July are ready for harvest in September and lasts till January.

Fruits:

Shimla Apples, Passion fruit, Manilla tamarind (Kodukkapuli), Star Fruit, Custard apple, Ambarella, Sweet lime, Papaya, Pineapple and Paneer grapes.

Other common Fruits in season- Pear, Bael (lasts till mid of Sep), Bilimbi/ Irumban puli (indigenous to South India, Maharashtra and Goa), Burmese grapes (indigenous to NE), Gulabi grapes, Guava, Rambutan, Strawberry (from Mahabaleshwar), Banana.

 Vegetables:

Season special- Corn, Tapioca/ Cassava, Turnip, Capsicum, Cabbage, Lotus stem, Brinjal, Colocasia/ taro, Bitter gourd, Ridge gourd, Ivy gourd/ tendli, Cucumber, Cluster beans, Broad beans, Beetroot.

Other common Vegetables in season- Bottle gourd, Ash gourd, Lady’s finger/ Okra, Carrot, Potato, Beans, Mushroom, Raw banana, Banana stem/ Plaintain pith, Chayote/ Chow chow, Cluster beans/ Gavar, Radish (hill variety), Cauliflower, Snake gourd. 

Grains/ Legumes/ Pulses: Millets, green gram, black gram, black channa, Jowar, Black eye peas, Horse gram, Moth beans.

Seeds and Nuts: Groundnut, Sesame, Cashewnut, Cotton seed. 

Greens: Moringa leaves, Gongura, Thuthuvalai/ Climbing Brinjal, Taro leaves, Pennywort/ Brahmi/ Vallaarai keerai, Raddish leaves (hill variety), dhekia xaak/ Lingru.

 Herbs and spices: Cardamom, Pepper, Pudhina/ mint, Lemon grass, Tulsi, Betel leaves. 

 

Sea foods:

White sardine (Chooda, Mathi, Swadi, Patulda, Pedva), White prawns, Anchovy (Nethili, Poravallu, Maandheli), Emperor fish, King fish (Surmai), Indian Salmon (Raavas), Barramundi, Cat fish, Lobster, Bomaby duck, Cobia, Coastal sharks, Barracuda, Tune, Croaker.

 

Reminder: Though Grains, legumes, pulses can be consumed all through the year, the mentioned ones are in season and serve the purpose.

Similarly, greens are also grown throughout the year but the mentioned ones serve its purpose this season.

 

A special note from our Farmers: 

In past, the Rainfed farming system was mainly dependent upon the locally available inputs (seeds, manures) and we used to grow a number of crops, which were able to withstand drought-like situation. But as the cropping systems have changed and currently holding on to limited options in rainfed areas, many of the (us) farmers in such regions started cultivating high value crops which requires intensive use of costly inputs (chemical fertilizers/ pesticides, hybrid seeds, irrigation technology, farm energy etc.) and find it difficult to manage the resources on their own. This is the major reason of growing farm suicides in rainfed areas.

So please do the needful! 

Note: I have studied the Indian seasonal produces with the help of farmers network and various research articles following the guidelines of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) and based on the cropping seasons – Kharif, Zaid and Rabi. Thereby, I’ve curated the fruits & vegetables, food grains and rest mentioned that would be available to us based on the sowing- growing and harvesting time period calculations for each month.

Kinds of seafood were studied and curated based on its availability along the West Coast and East coast from CIBA (Central Institute of Brackish Aquaculture). 

I hope this information is helpful to consume local and seasonal produces thereby keeping the  check on health too. 

Kindly let me know your thoughts if this benefits you all through comments below. 

Thank You! 

Maria Jenita, PhD