Zunna Berry (chunna) - Ziziphus Rugosa

We love berries don't we?

The best part is to collect them in the wild and either take them home or even better to indulge them here and there in the forest/jungle.

We don't feel like it is a waste of time!

It's an urge, like a desire deep from our subconscious selves, telling us “Come on, it is fun and healthy at the same time!”.

Granted, I for once don't stop my inner voice at those moments, I just let myself go and collect those berries before somebody else does! =P

Most probably that's a smart decision because even science can prove the vast amounts of nutritional values in a freshly plucked wild berry.

It wasn't forced to grow quickly, it wasn't planted by humans, and it wasn't created in a laboratoryin fact, the berry bush/shrub ancestors mostly grew the same way at the same area for ages!

Still we have the tendency to overlook this detail and living in our sin of laziness (or however else you might call it) we prefer to buy “labeled” food products, which by the way are either sprayed with cancerous poison or hybrid grown without any nutritional values and flavors.

Irony of life, one may call it.

Or is it our faltered thoughts or simply a systematic uncontrollable world?

Some of us overlooked natural resources of our forests and neighborhood and with time they were forgotten or even disappeared!

This extremely odd “trend”, doesn't really make sense, does it?

Fortunately, the humans didn't do all wrong and to our generation's luck we have the chance to share our experiences and discoveries with the world, thanks to the brilliant internet (that word already sounds old O.O), we share our knowledge all for free and learn them whenever we are ready to!

But the web still contains some few wholes and “missing links” here and there, and when I was looking for information about a little white Indian berry, I crashed into a dead end.

Although, after some time I had the chance not only to fill my belly with the berry delicacies but even coming across information which might be useful in the future in one way or the other.

I was smitten by the idea to herald the existence of the Zunna berry so that everyone might have the chance to use it before it gets swallowed into the abyss of extincted fruits.

The zunna/chunna berry (Ziziphus rugosa) is further known as Churna (Hindi), Toran (Marathi), Kottamullu (Kannada) and Ceruthutali (Malayalam) (source).

Since there is barely any information online about this fruit, I wasn't able to find out if it was available or known anywhere else except in India, so it might be that there are more Asian names for it!

Some few months back I had written an Article about an other berry, known in Goa as bora/ber also known as jujube date.

Somebody in facebook had mentioned that the Zunna berry is a jujube date, which I had dismissed!

My sincere apologize to the one, apparently those two berries are cousins and the Zunna berry might be called jujube date too!

Anyway... I did find one recently published study report about the berry here, which elaborates the test results of the nutritional values, perfectly well.

The berries contain mainly a good amount of minerals such as  Nitrogen (for digestion and growth), Iron (help red blood cells to carry oxygen), Potassium (to keep your nerve cells healthy), Magnesium (essential for all over health) and Manganese (multiple health factors).

According to an other study (here) the berries contain (unsurprisingly) antioxidants (cancer killers!) and a few couple of Vitamin types such as B1, B2 and B3.

Of course those studies are quite young but traditional uses in India confirm health and nutritional benefits all in all.

It seems that the berries are used to treat lung ailments and fevers.

In general it's very useful against infections and fungus and is so known to help against constipation.

If mixed with salt and chilli it can be given to help the stomach digestion and sooth gall problems.

By the way, I had elaborated the fruit color and taste before here.

Again, the unripe fruit is green and hard.

While riping it turns white then transparent and the flesh soft/mealy.

I love them over ripe, they just melt in your mouth, plus they are not sour or anything like that but sweet and then too not a lots!

The first study report explained on how to use the zunna berries in a culinary way ( I hadn't the chance to try out myself yet) by juicing the fruit gems or by mixing them into South Indian Dosas.

I am pretty keen to try out the later recipe, once the berries are in season again next year! =D