Jackfruit

Jackfruit is one of its own kind of tropical fruits, recognized for its unique shape, size, and fruity flavor that can be appreciated from a distance. The fruit isadelicious sweet taste. In common with other tropical fruits such as durian, banana, etc., it is also rich in energy, dietary fiber, minerals, and vitamins and free from saturated fats or cholesterol, making it one of the healthy summer treat to relish! botanically, this popular asian tropical fruit belongs to the family of moraceae, genus: artocarpus and is closely related to figs, mulberry, and breadfruit.

Jackfruit is a huge tree that grows to as high as 30 meters, larger than mango tree. It is believed to be indigenous to the southwestern rain forests of india. Today, it is widely cultivated in the tropical regions of indian subcontinent, thailand, malaysia, indonesia and brazil for its fruit, seeds, and wood. The tree grows best under tropical humid and rainy climates but rarely survives cold and frosty conditions.

During the season, each tree bears as many as 250 large fruits, supposed to be the largest tree-borne fruits in the world. The fruit varies widely in size, weigh from 3 to 30 kg, and has oblong or round shape measuring 10 cm to 60 cm in length, 25 to 75 cm in diameter. While unripe fruits are green, they turnalight brownaand spread a strong sweet, fruity smell once ripe.

As in durian fruit, its outer surface is covered with the blunt thorn-like projections, which become soft as the fruit ripe.a its interior consists of orange-yellow colored edible bulbs. Each bulb consists of sweet-flavored flesh (sheath) that encloses a smooth, oval, light-brown seed. There may be as many as 100 to 500 edible bulbs embedded in a single fruit interspersed between thin bands of fibers.

Jackfruit seed is encased inside a thin, transparent outer cover. It largely compose of starch and white and crisp within. Each seed measures about 2 to 4 cm in length, and 1 to 3 cm in thickness. Almost all the parts of the tree secrete white sticky latex like milk (juice) upon infliction of injury.

100 g of edible jackfruit bulbs provide 95 calories. The fruit is made of soft, easily digestible flesh (bulbs) with simple sugars like fructose and sucrose that when eaten replenishes energy and revitalizes the body instantly.

Jackfruit is rich in dietary fiber, which makes it a good bulk laxative. The fiber content helps protect the colon mucous membrane byabinding to and eliminating cancer-causing chemicals from the colon.

Fresh fruit has small amounts of vitamin-a, and flavonoid pigments such as carotene-b, xanthin, lutein and cryptoxanthin-b. Together, these compounds play vital roles in antioxidant and vision functions. Vitamin a is also required for maintaining integrity of mucus membranes and skin. Consumption of natural fruits rich in vitamin-a, and carotenes has been found to protect from lung and oral cavity cancers.

Additionally, jackfruit is a good source of antioxidant vitamin-c, provides about 13.7 mg or 23% of rda. Consumption of foods rich in vitamin c helps the body develop resistance against infectious agents and scavenge harmful free radicals.

It is one of the rare fruits that is rich in b-complex group of vitamins. It contains very good amounts of vitamin b-6 (pyridoxine), niacin, riboflavin, and folic acid.

Fresh fruit is a good source of potassium, magnesium, manganese, and iron. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids that helps controlling heart rate and blood pressure.

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 in many parts of south indian states. 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.