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The Baiga Adivasi community in Madhya Pradesh's Dindori district has developed a unique cuisine based on wild foods and shifting cultivation.
Their diet includes tubers, leafy vegetables, fruits, and mushrooms, offering nutritional and medicinal benefits.
The preservation of this culinary heritage is contingent upon the survival of the forests that sustain it.
The Baiga Adivasi community primarily inhabits the Baiga Chak region in Madhya Pradesh’s Dindori district.
Here, in the hilly terrain and rich forests, the Baiga tribe has developed unique cultural practices, including their cuisine.
The Baiga eat a variety of different wild foods that grow naturally in the area like tubers, leafy vegetables, fruits and mushrooms. They also grow several crops and seeds through the practice of shifting cultivation.
The shifting cultivation practiced by the Baiga is known as bewar. It involves clearing land by cutting and burning vegetation, cultivating crops for a few years, and then leaving the land fallow to regenerate naturally.
The Baiga do not plough as they believe doing so harms Mother Earth.
The foods of the Baiga not only have nutritional benefits but also medicinal and therapeutic ones. These are said to help protect the Baigas from the rigours of forest life and preventing illnesses.
However, this unique cuisine of the Baiga will only survive if the forests containing this flora survive.