Name: Bael, also known as Bel Fruit, Bengal Quince, Indian Bael, or Stone Apple (Aegle marmelos).
Description
Bael is the fruit of a slow-growing, spiny tree in the Rutaceae family — the same botanical family as citrus — native to India and Bangladesh and long naturalized across Southeast Asia. The pear-shaped to oblong fruit has a very hard, woody rind enclosing sweet, thick, orange-coloured pulp, and its sweet-scented white flowers are sometimes used in perfumes.
The unripe fruit, sliced and sun-dried, has a long history as a traditional remedy for dysentery and other digestive complaints in Ayurvedic medicine, while the ripe pulp is eaten fresh or diluted with water and sugar into a cooling drink known as bael sharbat. Its wood is pale and hard, though not especially durable for construction.
Main nutrition value
USDA FoodData Central has no analyzed entry for bael. The closest documented substitute available is quince — an unrelated species, but similarly a hard-shelled, aromatic fruit that is astringent raw and usually eaten processed or cooked rather than fresh — so the figures below are an approximation for bael, not a direct measurement of it. Per 100g, raw quince:
| Name | Average Amount | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Proximates | ||
| Water | 83.8 | g |
| Energy | 57 | kcal |
| Protein | 0.4 | g |
| Total lipid (fat) | 0.1 | g |
| Ash | 0.4 | g |
| Carbohydrate, by difference | 15.3 | g |
| Fiber, total dietary | 1.9 | g |
| Minerals | ||
| Calcium, Ca | 11 | mg |
| Iron, Fe | 0.7 | mg |
| Magnesium, Mg | 8 | mg |
| Phosphorus, P | 17 | mg |
| Potassium, K | 197 | mg |
| Sodium, Na | 4 | mg |
| Zinc, Zn | 0.04 | mg |
| Copper, Cu | 0.13 | mg |
| Selenium, Se | 0.6 | µg |
| Vitamins | ||
| Vitamin C, total ascorbic acid | 15 | mg |
| Thiamin | 0.02 | mg |
| Riboflavin | 0.03 | mg |
| Niacin | 0.2 | mg |
| Pantothenic acid | 0.081 | mg |
| Vitamin B-6 | 0.04 | mg |
| Folate, total | 3 | µg |
By this proxy measure, bael-type fruit is a useful source of vitamin C and potassium, with some fiber and iron; traditional Ayurvedic sources also credit bael pulp with tannins and mucilage that are not captured in standard nutrient tables.
How best to be consumed
Ripe bael pulp is usually scooped out and either eaten fresh with a spoon or beaten with water, sugar or jaggery, and sometimes tamarind or lime, into the chilled drink bael sharbat, popular in India during the hot season. The unripe fruit is too hard and astringent to eat raw and is instead dried and used medicinally or made into marmalade-style preserves.
Overconsumption could cause…
Bael pulp is high in natural tannins, and eating large amounts of the unripe fruit in particular can cause constipation, since its traditional use for treating diarrhea comes precisely from this astringent, binding effect. Very large quantities of the sweet ripe pulp or sharbat can also add up in sugar. As with most traditional remedies, concentrated medicinal preparations should be treated with more caution than the ripe fruit eaten in ordinary amounts.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, FoodData Central — Quinces, raw (FDC ID 168163), 100g portion, used as a nutritional proxy for bael (no USDA entry exists for Aegle marmelos): https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/168163/nutrients Encyclopaedia Britannica — bel fruit: https://www.britannica.com/plant/bel-fruit
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