The top benefits, nutritional values, Uses and storage of Jackfruit

The top benefits, nutritional values, Uses and storage of Jackfruit

Jackfruit is a tropical tree fruit native to southwest India. It belongs to the Moraceae plant family, which also includes mulberries, figs, and breadfruit. It has a fibrous texture which is often used as a  jackfruit flesh as a meat substitute in vegetarian or vegan dishes. Jackfruit has a thick yellow flesh which has edible seeds and pods inside it. It has a sweet and distinctive flavor and is often described as a cross product of pineapple and banana. It is called kathal in hindi.

Jackfruit contains all essential nutrients in it. The health benefits of jackfruit are

Cholesterol levels

Jackfruit reduces LDL cholesterol and increases HDL cholesterol levels in the body. It also reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Blood pressure

Jackfruit contains potassium which helps to reduce the high blood pressure and reduces tension in the walls of blood vessels.

Cancer

Phytochemicals, such as flavonoids, saponins, and tannins are found in jackfruit which reduces free radicals, oxidative stress and chronic diseases, including cancer.

Wound healing

Jackfruit contains vitamin C which boosts the immune system, maintains healthy skin, bones, and connective tissues, such as blood vessels and cartilage. It has anti-inflammatory, antibacterial,  antifungal properties and collagen  that  promotes wound healing.

Digestive health

Jackfruit contains both soluble and insoluble fiber and prebiotics which promotes the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut, lowers LDL cholesterol and maintains digestive system of the body.

Promotes hair growth

Jackfruit seeds can aid in healthy blood circulation that is vital for good hair growth.

Immunity

Jackfruit is a great source of Vitamin C and antioxidants, which can strengthen your immune system. It helps to protect the body from many common diseases such as cough, cold and flu.

Energy

Jackfruit is loaded with carbohydrate and calorie. This is a rich source of simple sugar like fructose and sucrose that gives instant energy. The fruit contains zero cholesterol that makes it a safe and healthy food.

Improves eyesight

Jackfruit contains antioxidants and vitamin A that maintains eye health, protects from macular degeneration and cataracts.

Skin health and ageing

Antioxidants present in jackfruit can destroy the free radicals in the body to slow down the ageing process.

 Asthma

Jackfruit provides relief to people suffering from asthma.

Bone health

Jackfruit contains calcium, which strengthens and promotes healthy bone. This can also prevent osteoporosis. Jackfruit also contains good level of potassium, which can decrease the loss of calcium through the kidney and increase bone density.

Anemia

Jackfruit comes loaded with Vitamin A, C, E, K, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Pantothenic acid, Copper, Manganese and Magnesium that are required for blood formation. This also increases your body’s capacity to absorb iron, thus preventing and curing anemia.

 Cold and infections

Jackfruit contains vitamin C which prevents from cold and infections.

 Keeps thyroid healthy

Jackfruit contains copper which maintains thyroid metabolism and keeps thyroid healthy.

Supports bowel regularity

Jackfruit has high a fiber content that can give relief and prevention from constipation and maintains regular bowel movement.

 Helps prevent night blindness

Jackfruit can be very good for your eyes. This ‘jack of all fruits’ contain a good amount of vitamin A and can prevent night blindness.

Lowers risk of heart disease

Jackfruit is very heart-friendly. Vitamin B6 present in the fruit helps to reduce homocysteine levels in your blood and keeps your heart hale and hearty!

 Ulcers

Jackfruit has strong anti-ulcerative properties that can cure ulcers and many other digestive system disorders.

Jackfruit can be eaten at any time of day. Jackfruit goes well with bananas, bell peppers, carrots, cauliflower, chiles, garlic, ginger, leeks, lemon, lemongrass, lime, mushrooms, onions, peas, potatoes, and tomatoes, bay leaf, cilantro, cumin, garam masala, and turmeric. And sauces like barbeque sauce, cashews, coconut milk, molasses, rice, and soy sauce

Ways to use jackfruit

Fights wrinkles:

Dip jackfruit seed in some cold milk for a minute. Grind this well and apply gently on the wrinkles. This can reduce wrinkles in just about 6 weeks. Use regularly for best results.

 Flawless skin:

Jackfruit seed can give you flawless skin. Soak some dry seed with milk and honey. Grind them into a fine paste and apply on your face. Let it dry, and then wash off to reveal flawless skin in just few minutes.

How to buy and store jackfruit

While buying the jackfruit make sure that the pieces are not blackened and look soft and tender. If you are picking the ripe fruit, the flesh should be vibrant yellow, without any dark patches.

Store the jackfruit in the refrigerator.

Uses of jackfruit

Jackfruit is used in thai curries.

It is used to make brown sugar cake and sticky rice

It is used in smoothies and curries.

Season in which jackfruit is available

In Asia, jackfruits ripen principally from March to June, April to September, or June to August, depending on the climatic region, with some off-season crops from September to December, or a few fruits at other times of the year.

How to make With Rabdi Recipe – Kathal Malpua

Ingredients

For Jackfruit Malpua

1 cup All Purpose Flour (Maida)

1 cup Milk

10 Jackfruit Ripe (Kathal), flesh

3 tablespoons Paneer (Homemade Cottage Cheese)

1 teaspoon Baking powder

2 Cardamom (Elaichi) Pods/Seeds, powdered

1 teaspoon Fennel seeds (Saunf), coarsely pounded

Salt, a pinch

For Rabdi

2 liter Milk

3/4 cup Sugar,

1 teaspoon Cardamom Powder (Elaichi)

2 Saffron strands

1/4 cup Badam (Almond), or pistachios, finely chopped

Method

To begin making the Jackfruit Malpua With Rabdi, we will first make the homemade Rabdi by clicking on the link below

Basundi (Rabri) Recipe (A Nutty Condensed Milk Pudding) . Keep it ready in a bowl.

To make the Jackfruit Malpua, peel the flesh and remove the seeds. Grind the jackfruit in a mixer to a coarse and chunky paste.

Add coarsely ground jackfruit paste into a bowl, add in flour, paneer, ground cardamom, fennel seeds, milk and a pinch of salt.

Mix well to get a thick consistency of the Jackfruit Malpua. Rest the batter for 10 minutes.

Heat a flat skillet on a medium heat. Drop one ladle full of the the Jackfruit Malpua batter to form a small pancake shaped size. You can use the back of the ladle to flatten the Jackfruit Malpua a little.

Drizzle a teaspoon of ghee and cook on either side until you notice a golden brown color on both side. Flip it and drizzle some more ghee on serve. Do the same for the rest of the Jackfruit Malpua batter.

While serving, place the Jackfruit Malpua on a platter, pour the Rabri over the malpua and sprinkle few strands of saffron and chopped almonds and serve.

Serve the Jackfruit Malpua with Rabdi Recipe as a sweet after your meal of Gobi Biryani (Spiced Cauliflower Rice), Tomato Onion Cucumber Raita and Kadai Paneer Baby Corn Stir Fry for your weekend lunch meal.

How to make Recipe – South Indian Raw Jackfruit Stir Fry

Ingredients

1 cup Jackfruit Raw (Kathal), raw and diced

2 sprig Curry leaves

1 teaspoon Mustard seeds

1 pinch Asafoetida (hing)

1 teaspoon White Urad Dal (Split)

1 teaspoon Chana dal (Bengal Gram Dal)

2 Green Chillies, slit

Salt, to taste

1/2 teaspoon Turmeric powder (Haldi)

1 teaspoon Black pepper powder

1 teaspoon Lemon juice

2 tablespoons Fresh coconut, grated

Method

To begin making the Raw Jackfruit Poriyal, let us first cut the raw jackfruit. In order to do that we have to first, grease our hands and the knife that we are going to use, with some oil.

This important tip ensures that the hands don’t get sticky from the natural fruit latex/sap present in the fruit does not get onto your hands and makes the cutting process hassle-free.

Keep a bowl of water mixed with some salt, ready to put the cut raw jackfruit pieces to avoid discolouration of the fruit.

Now that your hands and knife are well greased, cut the the jackfruit in half, discard the skin and start making 1 inch pieces and soak them in the salted water.

To start making the Raw Jackfruit Poriyal, place the jackfruit in a pressure cooker with 1/4 cup of water and pressure cook for 6 whistles and turn off the heat.

Allow the pressure to release naturally. Drain any water from the jackfruit and set aside.

In a frying pan, heat oil on medium heat, add the mustard seeds and allow it to crackle, next add asafoetida, urad dal and chana dal and fry till they turn golden brown. This will take about a minute.

Once they have turned brown, add in the curry leaves, green chilies, salt, turmeric powder, black pepper powder and the boiled raw jackfruit pieces. Give the Raw Jackfruit Poriyal a good stir for about 30 seconds and turn off the heat.

Finally add the lemon juice, grated coconut and mix properly. The Raw Jackfruit Poriyal Recipe is ready to be served.

Serve this Raw Jackfruit Poriyal Recipe along with Steamed Rice and Udupi Style Sambar Recipe | Masala Huli With Mixed Vegetables for a weekday lunch meal.

For an Indian Diabetic meal you can serve this Raw Jackfruit Poriyal Recipe along with Ragi Tawa Paratha and Hyderabadi Khatti Dal Recipe and Raw Papaya, Apple & Carrot Salad Recipe and Palak Raita for a complete meal.

Safety profile

Jackfruit can also trigger allergic reactions in people with birch pollen allergies. Otherwise no side effect have been observed from jackfruit.

Fun facts about jackfruit

  • The jackfruit tree is well suits to tropical lowlands, and its fruit is the biggest tree-borne fruit, reading as much as 35 kilograms, or 80 pounds, in weight, 90 centimeters, or 35 inches, in length, and 50 centimeters, or 20 inches, in diameter.
  • A mature jackfruit tree can produce about 100 to 200 fruits a year.
  •  The jackfruit is a multiple fruit, made up of hundreds to thousands of individual flowers. The fleshly petals is really what’s eaten.
  • The jackfruit is widely cultivated and it’s a popular food item throughout the tropical regions of the world.
  • The jackfruit is the national fruit of Bangladesh.
  •  The word “jackfruit” comes from Portuguese “jaca”, which comes from the Malayalam language term “chakka”.
  •  When the Portuguese came to India at Kozhikode on the Malabar Coast in 1498, the Malayalam name “chakka” was recorded by Hendrik van Rheede in the Hortus Malabaricus, in Latin.
  •  The common English name “jackfruit” was first used by physician and naturalist Garcia de Orta in his 1563 book “Coloquios dos simples e drogas da Índia.”
  • Archaeological findings in India have revealed that jackfruit was cultivated in India 3000 to 6000 years ago.
  •  The jackfruit provides a potential solution to countries facing problems with food security, such as several countries in Africa.
  • Minimal pruning is required for the jackfruit plant. Cutting off dead branches from the interior of the tree is only sometimes needed. Twigs bearing fruit must be twisted or cut down to the trunk to induce growth for the next season.
  •  Branches of the jackfruit tree have to be cut off every 3 to 4 years to maintain its productivity.
  •  A fully ripe and unopened jackfruit is known to emit a strong aroma, with the inside of the fruit described as smelling of pineapple and banana.
  •  In Bangladesh, jackfruit is eaten on its own. The unripe fruit is used in curry, and the seed is often dried and preserved to be later used in curry.
  • In India, two varieties of jackfruit are predominantly eaten, the varikka and koozha. The Varikka has a slightly hard inner flesh when ripe, while the inner flesh of the ripe koozha fruit is soft.
  •  In Indonesia, jackfruit is called “nangka.” The ripe fruit is usually sold separately and eaten on its own, or sliced and mixed with shaved ice as a sweet dessert such as es campur and es teler.
  •  In the Philippines, jackfruit is called “langka” in Filipino and “nangka” in Cebuano. The unripe fruit is usually cooked in coconut milk and is eaten together with rice.
  •  The pulp of jackfruit is composed of 74% water, 23% carbohydrates, 2% protein and 1% fat. In a 100 gram portion of jackfruit, there is 95 calories and a rich source of vitamin B6.
  •  In Indonesia, the hardwood from the trunk of a jackfruit tree is carved out to form the barrels of drums used in the gamelan, and in the Philippines, its soft wood is made into the body of the kutiyapi, a type of boat lute.
  •  In Vietnam, jackfruit wood is prized for the making of Buddhist statues in temples and fish sauce barrels.
  •  The jackfruit heartwood is used by Buddhist forest monastics in Southeast Asia as a dye, giving the robes of the monks their distinctive light-brown color.
  • The wood of the jackfruit tree is important in Sri Lanka and is exported to Europe. The wood is termite proof and is superior to building furniture.
  •  Jackfruit is the state fruit of the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and it’s one of the three auspicious fruits of Tamil Nadu, along with the mango and banana.
  •  In Brazil, the jackfruit can become an invasive species as in Brazil’s Tijuca Forest National Park in Rio de Janeiro.
  • Jackfruit industries are established in Sri Lanka and Vietnam, where the fruit is processed into products such as flour, noodles, papad and ice cream.
  • The jackfruit also known as jack tree, fenne, jackfruit, or sometimes simply jack or jak, is a type of a tropical fruit.
  • This fruit is native to the rain forests of the Western Ghats of India.
  • The jackfruit spread early on to other parts of India, southeast Asia, the East Indies and ultimately the Philippines.
  • It is often planted in central and eastern Africa and is fairly popular in Brazil and Suriname.
  • Jackfruit is adapted to humid tropical and near-tropical climates. Mature trees have survived temperatures of about 3 °C (27° F) in southern Florida, but these were frozen to large limbs. Young trees are likely to be killed at temperatures below 0 °C (32° F).
  • It is very long-lived tree and generally with a lifespan of 60 to 70 years.
  • It grows to an enormous size up to 30 meters (almost 100 feet) high and 80 to 200 centimeters (2.6 to 6.5 feet) in diameter. The crown is dense and conical in young trees, becoming rounded or spreading in the older trees
  • The leaves are oblong, oval, or elliptic in form, 10 to 15 cm in length, leathery, glossy, and deep green in color. Juvenile leaves are lobed.
  • Male and female flowers are borne in separate flower-heads. Male flower-heads are on new wood among the leaves or above the female. They are swollen, oblong, from 2.5 to 10 centimeters (1 to 4 inches) long and up to an inch wide at the widest part.
  • A mature jackfruit tree can produce about 100 to 200 fruits in a year
  • Jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world, reaching 36 kilograms (80 pounds) in weight and up to 91 centimeters (36 inches) long and 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter. The exterior of the compound fruit is green or yellow when ripe. The interior consists of large edible bulbs of yellow, banana-flavored flesh.
  • When fully ripe, the unopened jackfruit emits a strong disagreeable odor, resembling that of decayed onions, while the pulp of the opened fruit smells of pineapple and banana.
  • The seed is 1.9 to 3.8 centimeters (3/4 to 1.5 inch) long and 1.3 to 1.9 centimeters (1/2 to 3/4 inch) thick and is white and crisp within. There may be 100 or up to 500 seeds in a single fruit.
  • The greenish unripe fruit is cooked as a vegetable, and the ripened fruit is eaten fresh for the sweetly acid but insipid pulp surrounding the seeds. The ripened fruit is also used to make a variety of dishes, including custards, cakes, ice cream or mixed with shaved ice as es teler in Indonesia or halo-halo in the Philippines.
  • The seeds from ripe fruits are edible, and are said to have a milky, sweet taste often compared to Brazil nuts.
  • There are 95 calories in 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of jackfruit.
  • Jackfruit is rich in vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. It is a very good source of vitamin A and B-complex vitamins Vitamin C and Vitamin E. The fruit is also a good source source of minerals, such as iron, magnesium, potassium and manganese as well.
  • The word “jackfruit” comes from Portuguese jaca, which in turn is derived from the Malayalam language term chakka.
  • The common English name “jackfruit” was used by physician and naturalist Garcia de Orta in his 1563 book Colóquios dos simples e drogas da Índia.
  • Archeological findings in India have revealed that jackfruit was cultivated in India 3000 to 6000 years ago.
  • In Brazil, the jackfruit can become an invasive species as in Brazil’s Tijuca Forest National Park in Rio de Janeiro. The Tijuca is mostly an artificial secondary forest, whose planting began during the mid-19th century; jackfruit trees have been a part of the park’s flora since it was founded.

Comment (1)

  • http://finnuarp984.image-perth.org Reply

    This is the perfect site for everyone who hopes to
    understand this topic. You realize a whole lot its almost tough to argue with you (not that I actually would want to…HaHa).
    You certainly put a fresh spin on a subject that has been discussed
    for many years. Excellent stuff, just great!

    September 19, 2020 at 10:50 am

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *