Jack fruits are used during the season as a fruit or as a vegetable ingredient for a several traditional
Indian dishes.
“A Jackfruit tree extends a human life by
10yrs with just 60 days of fruits per year”
During off season, it is used as fried or dried chips, or as a canned fruit.
Only Sri Lanka and Kerala uses mature unripe jack fruit to prepare a whole meal as an alternate to Rice or Wheat which means higher quantity of consumption. Rest of the world uses tender jack fruit as a side dish in low quantity per meal.
Jack fruit has a very short season of 2-3 months .
Most nutritional values of jack fruits are for Ripe jack fruit which is high in sugar hence many overlooked unripe jack fruit.hence never considered as a viable diet.
However almost 80% of the Jack fruits in India are going waste as there is no organized market for Jack fruit based products and Chefs are reluctant to use Jack Fruit for three reasons- seasonal, messy to prepare and the aroma spreads in the kitchen.
Consumption of mature unripe jack fruit can reduce insulin dependency on patients due to:
1. Low glycemic index
2. High dietary fiber especially insoluble fiber
3. Possible to eat large quantity as a meal and satiate a hungry diabetic patient
In addition jack fruit is Gluten Free and can be a silver bullet for diabetic patients with Gluten allergy
1. Hypothesis for Hypoglycemic activity
Jackfruit meal has a low Glycemic Index (GI). The low GI could be due to the collective contributions from dietary fiber, slowly available glucose and un-gelatinised (intact) starch granules in the seeds. Since the study compared the Jack fruit meal with white bread as a standard, according to the current Glucose standards for glycemic index, the value would be 52.5 i.e. low GI.
2 . Unripe raw jackfruit has very low sugar level, only 20% sugar level Vs ripe pods.
3. Very high insoluble fiber in jackfruit
|
NUTRITION,FACTS / 100g
|
|---|
| Energy Value | 384.7 kcal |
| Total FAT | 0.7 g |
| Saturated FAT | 0.1 g |
| Sodium | 15.7 mg |
| Total Carbohydrate | 91 g |
| Total Dietary Fibre | 6.5 g |
| Soluble Dietary Fibre : | 2.6 g |
| Insoluble Dietary ibre | 3.9 g |
| Sugar | 10.2 g |
| Protein | 3.6 g |
| Manganese | 0.6 mg |
Health Benefits Of Jack fruit
- Strengthens the immune system
- Prevents anaemia
- Reduces the risk of heart disease
- Supports treatment of blood clotting
- Always keeps the thyroid healthy
- Regulates blood sugar level
- Prevents osteoporosis
- Aids in vision
- Regulates blood pressure
- Prevents intestinal diseases
- Researchers in the use of jackfruit to reduce the post complication of chemotherapy in cancer patients are going on.It is found that pectin in jackfruit helps this to prevent the chemotherapy complications.
- by,
- DR.RENJU T GEORGE,
- INDIA
