Bael

Bel, the hard-shelled fruit of a sacred Indian tree, pressed into cooling sharbat and murabba and traditionally used in Ayurveda for the stomach and bowels.

Aegle marmelos is a thorny tree of the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia, sacred to Hindus and Buddhists. Its round fruit has a hard, woody shell around a fragrant, sticky orange pulp, which is strained into bel sharbat in summer, cooked into murabba and dried as powder.

Ayurveda turns to bael for the digestive tract: the ripe fruit traditionally as a mild laxative, the unripe fruit for loose motions. The pulp carries pectin, tannins and coumarins such as marmelosin. A 2023 review found digestive, antimicrobial and antioxidant activity, almost all of it in laboratory and animal studies, with few trials in people.

• Bowel regularity
• Digestive health
• Summer sharbat
• Ayurvedic fruit