• Green Beans

• Bitter Gourd

• Ambarella

• Breadfruit

• Capsicum

• Green Chili

• Winged Beans

• Jack Fruit

• Drumstick

• Lady's Finger

• Thalanabatu

• Thibbatu

• String Beans (A.K.A - Green Beans)

• Snake Gourd

• Young Jack Fruit

• Ash Banana

• Batana Pumpkin

• Brinjal Long

• Chow Chow

• Cucumber

• Velarica

• Knol Khol

• Leeks

• Radish

• Spring Onion

• Sweet Potato

• Green Pumpkin

• Beet Root

• Tamarind

• Curry Lemon

• Cabbage

• Red Onion

• Curry Papaya

• Ridge Gourd

• Kochchi

• Jackfruit Seeds

• Butter Beans

• Banana Flower

Green beans, also known as French beans, string bean or snap beans, are tender, elongated, firm yet flexible edible pods of bean plant.

How to select
Choose fresh, well coloured beans that snap easily when bent.

Nutrition
Fresh green beans are very low in calories and contain no saturated fat. Nevertheless, these lean vegetables are a very good source of vitamins, minerals, and plant derived micronutrients.

The bitter gourd (also known as bitter melon) looks like a cucumber but with ugly gourd-like bumps all over it. This vegetable is a melon that is bitter. Both varieties have seeds that are white when unripe and that turn red when they are ripe. The vegetable-fruit turn reddish-orange when ripe and becomes even more bitter.

Health benefits of the plant are well-known—particularly, its ability to lower blood glucose in diabetics.

Ambarella is also known as the Hog plum or Golden apple.  The part nearer to the peel is quite sour getting sweeter near the seed. The ripe fruit is also much sweeter than the less mature green fruit. The fruit is quite nice eaten fresh, being referred to as the travellers delight in some countries because people are often seen munching on them, and is often used for making delicious jelly, pickles, relishes, soups and stews.

Breadfruit is green from outside and yellow from the inside. This soft vegetable makes a palatable dish when cooked properly. Due to its high nutrition value, one can have breadfruit regularly without the chance of any side effect. The fruit has a starchy texture and fragrance that tends to remain about the fresh baked bread. The nutritious fruit and the seeds are edible. A fully ripe breadfruit is usually soft and fragrant and its flesh is creamy yellow like coloured and pasty with irregular oval seeds. In the centre of this seedless fruit, there found a cylindrical core, in some species which is fully covered with hairs and small seeds. The breadfruit's flesh will be sweet and the fruit haves a nice fragrant smell.

Health Benefits

• Well known for its energy boosting tendencies.
• Helps in controlling sugar levels in the body.

Capsicums add a dynamic personality to your food owing to vibrant colours of green, yellow, red and orange. Two, it blends into any dish and brings out a certain zing and flavour.

Health Benefits : 
Capsicums are known to lower the fat stored in blood corpuscles
Helps in burning calories
Rich in vitamins - capsicum helps in strengthening the immune system

How to select

• Look for capsicums that are brightly coloured, plump and shiny with a tight skin.
• Make sure that they are free from blemishes. Any dark spots on the surface could mean that capsicum has started to decay and rot.
• Capsicums need to be heavy and firm. Avoid the ones which are soft, dull, shriveled or pitted.
• Also, make sure that the stem is intact, fresh and green.

Chili, despite their fiery “hotness”, are one of very popular spices known for their medicinal and health benefiting properties. The chili, actually, is a fruit pod from the plant belonging to the nightshade family within the genus, capsicum. Inside, each fruit features numerous tiny, white, or cream colored, circular, flat seeds which clinging around the central white-placenta. Chilies have a strong spicy taste that comes to them from the active alkaloid compounds.

Green Chile is a “super food” with super benefits like low cholesterol and rich in vitamins and essential minerals that make this the perfect part of your regular diet.

The winged bean plant grows as a vine with climbing stems and leaves, 3–4 m in height. The bean pod is typically 15–22 cm (6–9 in) long and has four wings with frilly edges running lengthwise. The skin is waxy and the flesh partially translucent in the young pods. The pods feature along its entire length frilly edges on its four sides and round to oval shaped beans inside.

Nutritional Value
Wing beans offer an abundance of essential nutrients, including protein, complex carbohydrates, B vitamins, calcium, iron and fiber.

Fruits are frequently sliced and sold raw in parts of Southeast Asia. The seeds can be boiled or roasted and are said to taste like chestnuts. Jackfruit is, commonly available in most Asian markets. It is very straightforward with a good, not quite crispy surface, and the gentle taste of pineapple and a slightly characteristic musky in taste.

Jackfruit is a good source of calorie but contain no cholesterol or saturated fats.

Health Benefits:

• Quick boost of energy
• Maintain Blood Pressure
• Improve Digestion
• Anti-cancer nutrients
• Promotes hair growth
• Comfort from indigestion

Drumsticks are highly nutritious, being a significant source of beta-carotene, Vitamin C, protein, iron, and potassium. The leaves are cooked and used like spinach. The immature seed pods are commonly consumed in South Asia. They are prepared cooked in a curry until soft. The seed pods/fruits, even when cooked by boiling, remain particularly high in vitamin C.
The seeds, sometimes removed from more mature pods and eaten like peas or roasted like nuts, contain high levels of vitamin C and moderate amounts of B vitamins and dietary minerals.

Health Benefits

• Helps ease any kind of chest congestions, coughs and sore throats.
• Helps Pregnancy and Lactation
• Valuable in digestive disorders
• Valuable in preventing infections of all kinds such as that of the throat, chest and skin.

Lady’s finger is also known as “Okra”. Lady’s finger is an edible pea pod and although can be eaten raw, I’ve never acquired the raw taste. You can lightly blanch steam or give it a quick stir-fry to reduce the “green” taste. Lady’s finger is very low in calories and dense with nutrients. It is high in fiber, vitamin A, C, and folate content.

Health Tips:

• Helps red blood cells production
• Immune Booster
• Reducing asthmatic attacks

Thalana Batu is a variant of Eggplant. In Sri Lanka we call it as ela batu or thalana batu. However the type of eggplants we found in Sri Lanka is bit smaller. Quite distinguishable from the normal Eggplant due to its green textured peel and small round shape, it is a hollow shell like structure which contains tiny seeds. 

Thalana Batu is cut open with a knife and the seeds are scooped out leaving a fleshy shell which is cooked into a thick curry along with coconut milk, and makes a spicy companion to boiled rice. It is also salted and fried and eaten as a snack.

Rich in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, locals believe that it contains cardio regenerative capabilities. On a more scientific note, it is quite obviously a good source of Proteins and unsaturated fats backing the earlier claim.

The fruits are berries that grow in clusters of tiny green spheres (1 cm in diameter) that look like green peas. They become yellow when fully ripe. They are thin-fleshed and contain numerous flat, round, brown seeds.
The fruits are incorporated into soups and sauces or as cooked food like a Curry. 

Health Benefits

• Prevention of heart disease
• Appetizer
• Cleanses skin,
• Rich in vitamin - C.
• Natural antiseptic
• Cleanses blood.

Green beans, also known as French beans, string bean or snap beans, are tender, elongated, firm yet flexible edible pods of bean plant.

How to select
Choose fresh, well coloured beans that snap easily when bent.

Nutrition
Fresh green beans are very low in calories and contain no saturated fat. Nevertheless, these lean vegetables are a very good source of vitamins, minerals, and plant derived micronutrients.

The snake gourd also known as Chinese cucumber, the bear delicious, strangely shaped fruit that appear to be just like coiled up snakes. They’re plain green or even grey-green becoming orange or red whenever ripe. The tender immature fruits are cooked as vegetables.

Health Benefits

• Advantageous in lessening bilious fever
• advantageous in the disorders of the heart
• Low calorie food
• Reduce Diabetes

Young Jack Fruits are frequently sliced and sold raw in parts of Southeast Asia. The seeds can be boiled or roasted and are said to taste like chestnuts. Jackfruit is, commonly available in most Asian markets. It is very straightforward with a good, not quite crispy surface, and the gentle taste of pineapple and a slightly characteristic musky in taste.

Jackfruit is a good source of calorie but contain no cholesterol or saturated fats.

Health Benefits:

• Quick boost of energy
• Maintain Blood Pressure
• Improve Digestion
• Anti-cancer nutrients
• Promotes hair growth
• Comfort from indigestion

Ash Banana is quite different from dessert banana, being taller and larger and more drought tolerant. It is a perennial herbaceous plant that develops from the underground rhizome. Like bananas, it too flourishes well under tropical moisture-rich, humid low-lying farmlands.

Ash Banana can only eat after cooking. Each fruit measures about 3 to 10 inches or more in length depending upon the cultivar type. They tend to have coarser external features with prominent edges and flat surfaces unlike smooth, rounded contour of dessert bananas. The flesh inside is rich in starch, with tiny edible black seeds concentrated at its core. Ripening process, however, enhances flavor and sweetness since much of its starch converts to sugar, similar to as in the case of fruit bananas but to a lesser extent.

Pumpkins vary greatly in shape, size and colors. Giant pumpkinsgenerally weigh 4–6 kg with the largest capable of reaching a weight of over 25 kg. Some are flat, smaller in size and feature sweet creamy orange color flesh Pumpkins, in general, feature orange or yellow color; however, some varieties exhibit dark to pale green, brown, white, red and gray. Their color is largely influenced by yellow-orange pigments in their skin and pulp. Its thick rind is smooth with light, vertical ribs.

How to select
Look for mature fruit that features fine woody note on tapping, heavy in hand and stout stem. Avoid the one with wrinkled surface, cuts and bruises.

Health Benefits:

• Helps for Digestive System
• Keeps your immune system working properly
• Disease Prevention
• One of the very low calorie vegetables
• Good for Eye Health
• Decreasing Blood pressure

Brinjal, also called as eggplant. The egg-shaped glossy purple fruit has white flesh with a meaty texture. The cut surface of the flesh rapidly turns brown when the fruit is cut open. On wild plants, the fruit is less than 3 cm (1.2 in) in diameter, but very much larger in cultivated forms, reaching 30 cm (12 in) or more in length.

How to Select:

• Look for eggplants with smooth and shiny skin.
• The color should always be shiny bright whether it is green, purple or white.
• The fruit should be heavy and firm.
• Make sure there are no patches on the skin.
• The skin should be thin.
• If it is wrinkled, it is old. These would taste bitter.
• Press against the skin of the eggplant a little, if you see an impression, it means it is ripe.
• If the skin is too soft, it means it is too old and would surely taste bitter.
• It is advisable to choose a fruit with lesser seeds.
• Always check the blossom ends of the eggplant. If it has a larger scar it would have lesser seeds.

Health Benefits

• prevent cancer
• great for weight loss
• good for your brain
• Helpful to the heart

In the most common variety, the fruit is roughly pear-shaped, somewhat flattened and with coarse wrinkles. It looks like a green pear, and it has a thin, green skin fused with the green to white flesh, and a single, large, flattened pit. Some varieties have spiny fruits. The flesh has a fairly bland taste, and a texture is described as a cross between a potato and a cucumber. Although generally discarded, the seed has a nutty flavor and may be eaten as part of the fruit.

It Has a mild, almost watery flavor or a light melon taste, while a small but vocal minority report a highly repugnant taste—some say almost perfume-like. Cucumbers vary in bitterness, even from the same plant.

Health Benefits

• Good for Skin and hair care
• Fight cancers
• Relieves bad breath 
• Aids in weight loss and digestion
• Cures diabetes, reduces cholesterol and controls blood pressure

Velarica also known as Kakiri, in Sri Lanka. It is an important summer vegetable commonly grown throughout Sri Lanka. Cucumber plant, as creep has a climbing or trailing habit the tender fruits are eaten raw or with salt in salad. They are also used as cooked vegetable. It is reported that the oil exacted from seeds is good for brain and body.

Knol Khol is a greenish white colored big and round vegetable, somewhat similar to cabbage, although it does not have leaves covering. There are long light green colored extrusions, which come out as its shoots. It is large and woody or hard and comes in late winters.

How to Select
Select the fresh, large, light green colored knolkhol. It is hard, same like the core of cabbage. The unfresh one would show slightly drooped extrusions and might be wilted. Avoid the ones, which have cuts or ruptures, due to transportation.
Mildly sweet, crispy textured Knol Khol is rich in vitamins and dietary fiber.

Health Benefits

• Good for the circulatory system
• Promotes healthy digestion
• Assists muscle and nerve functions
• excellent choice in weight loss programs

The leek is a vegetable that belongs, along with onion and garlic. Leeks look like large scallions, having a very small bulb and a long white cylindrical stalk of superimposed layers that flows into green, tightly wrapped, flat leaves. Cultivated leeks are usually about 12 inches in length and one to two inches in diameter and feature a fragrant flavor that is reminiscent of shallots but sweeter and more subtle.

How to Select

Leeks should be firm and straight with dark green leaves and white necks. Good quality leeks will not be yellowed or wilted, nor have bulbs that have cracks or bruises.

Health Benefits

• Protects linings of blood vessels
• Good during pregnancy
• Antioxidant properties
• Fight cancer

Radishes can be white, red, purple or black, and in terms of shape, it can be long and cylindrical or round. They are eaten raw, cooked or pickled. The parts of radishes that are commonly consumed are the leaves, flowers, pods and seeds. 
Health Benefits

Health Benefits

• Good for Piles
• Urinary Disorders
• Reduce Blood Pressure
• For Kidney Disorders
• Dehydration

Also known as scallions or green onions, spring onions are in fact very young onions, Both the long, slender green tops and the small white bulb are edible, and are good either raw or cooked. They have a similar flavour to onions, but are much milder. Specially used to enhance the flavor and taste of the dish.

How to Select

Avoid slimy or wilting spring onions. The skin covering a spring onion' bulb can be either white or deep red fading to white at the roots - there's no significant difference in taste. Similarly, the bulb can be quite pronounced or more like a leek in shape, with no noticeable swelling; again, this has no impact on flavour.
Health Benefits

Health Benefits

• Aids in respiratory function
• Maintains normal vision
• Keeps your bones strong
• Protects against infection
• Lowers blood sugar levels

The sweet potato or kumara is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are a root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens.

The beetroot is the taproot portion of the beet plant, usually known in North America as the beet, also table beet, garden beet, red beet, or golden beet.

Pumpkins vary greatly in shape, size and colors. Giant pumpkinsgenerally weigh 4–6 kg with the largest capable of reaching a weight of over 25 kg. Some are flat, smaller in size and feature sweet creamy orange color flesh Pumpkins, in general, feature orange or yellow color; however, some varieties exhibit dark to pale green, brown, white, red and gray. Their color is largely influenced by yellow-orange pigments in their skin and pulp. Its thick rind is smooth with light, vertical ribs.

How to select
Look for mature fruit that features fine woody note on tapping, heavy in hand and stout stem. Avoid the one with wrinkled surface, cuts and bruises.

Health Benefits:

• Helps for Digestive System
• Keeps your immune system working properly
• Disease Prevention
• One of the very low calorie vegetables
• Good for Eye Health
• Decreasing Blood pressure

Sweet and tangy, tamarind is one of the widely used spice-condiments found in every South-Asian kitchen.

Cabbage or headed cabbage is a leafy green or purple biennial plant, grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads.

Red onions, are cultivars of the onion with purplish red skin and white flesh tinged with red. These onions tend to be medium to large in size and have a mild to sweet flavor.

Green papaya has a very mild, almost bland, taste, but it is the medium through which robust flavor ingredients take body and form. It picks up the hot, sour, sweet and salty flavors, giving them a unique crisp and chewy texture unlike that of any other vegetable. 

How to Select
Unripe papayas are readily available in various sizes and shapes during the summer at markets. Select one that is very firm with shiny green peel suggesting that it is as freshly picked as possible. Any very firm unripe green papaya can be used for the recipe. Select the firmest one you can find. Even green fruits will eventually ripen and turn soft if allowed to sit around for some time. 

A long vegetable with a dark green ridged skin and a white spongy flesh with soft seeds. It is prepared by removing the skin of the vegetable and then cooked. Ridge gourd is very prominent in Sri Lankan cooking. 

Nutritional Value 

• High content of dietary fiber and very low saturated fat
• It helps purify the blood
• Help regulate blood glucose levels

Kochchi Chili pepper is the spicy fruit of plants in the genus Capsicum; sometimes spelled chilli in the UK and chile in the Southwestern US. In the world is one of the most well known aroma and it’s consumed as powder or in several kinda sauces (enchilada sauces, Szechuan sauce and others) .Chili is famous due to the meat and chili recipe of tex mex cuisine: in the XIX century in S.Antonio, Texas, so called reins del chili (queens of chili) sold it in the road. The mexican cuisine could be considered the kingdom of chilli. In Sri Lanka it is known as Kochchi.

Jackfruit seeds are indeed very rich in digestible starch, protein and minerals. In general, the seeds are gathered from the ripe fruit during summer, sun-dried and stored for use in rainy season. Again, in these areas, jackfruit seeds can be employed in variety of recipes where they generally are eaten either by roasting as a snack or added to stews (curries) in place of lentils

Phaseolus lunatus is a legume grown for its edible seeds. It is commonly known as the lima bean, butter bean, or sieva bean.

A large, purplish blossom that grows from the end of a bunch of bananas. The leaves enclose scented flowers. The outer leaves are much darker and tougher compared to the tender inner leaves which are used in cooking. It is treated as a vegetable in several tropical and Asian cuisines.

How to select
Select a flower that is firm and fresh. The outer leaves should have a smooth appearance, bright and free from blemishes and cuts. The outer leaves should overlap tightly. They are available wrapped in transparent plastic, which keeps them from drying out quickly.