BREAD FRUIT
Bread fruit is a close
relative of Jack fruit but differs from the latter in more than one way.
Botanically bread fruit is Artacorpus altilis and like its cousin bears
exclusive flower clusters of male / female in separate groups. The female
flower cluster develops into a compound fruit/ Multiple fruit or Fruit of
fruits. The petal-like part of the flower -the perianth gets fleshy, swollen and
edible. . Bread fruit is quite small compared to jack fruit .A t best it
appears a mini jack fruit and its use among populations differs in the way the
fruit is used by different cultures.
The name ‘bread fruit’
gets the name from its bread like aroma upon cooking. The wood of the tree is used as timber in
parts of ship and houses in tropics. Cultivated in over 90 countries, a wide
variety of names are used to name the trees in different geographic locales.
Propagation is by seeds while the seedless ones are propagated through root
cuttings.
Trees may attain 80
feet or more and give off ‘milky’ latex from all injured surfaces /
leaves. Leaves are typically with deeply dissected margins.
Several cultivated
varieties are seedless while the wild ones bear seeds. Curiously, bread fruits
/plants are raised by using root cuttings. Another interesting feature is the,
seeded varieties are grown for their edible seeds The fruit is formed by a
consolidated cluster of 1500-200 flowers all of which are in a common
enclosure-the fruit skin.
FOOD VALUE
Bread fruits are said
to yield well at 103 k calories of energy per 100 gms . Other components
include, Carbohydrate = 27.12 g Dietary fibres = 4.9 g , Sugars =11 g
Fat= 0.23 g, Protein=
1.07 g and some vitamins as under: Thiamine[B1]= 0.11 mg
Riboflavin [ B2] =
0.03mg, Niacin [B3]= 0.9 mg, Pantothenic acid [B5]=0.457 mg
Vit. B6= 0.1mg, Folate
=14 micro gram Choline =9.8 mg Vit C =29 mg Vit E=0.1mg, Vit K= 0.5microgram
Minerals
Calcium =17 mg ,
Magnesium =25 mg, Iron= 0.54 mg Manganese =0.06 mg Potassium =490 mg
Phosphorous= 30 mg , Sodium= 2 mg,
Zinc=0.12 mg
Water =70.6 gm
Thus, bread fruits
offer a range of nutritional benefits.
Prof. K.Raman
Whenever I visit Trichy I prefer to stay in Ajantha hotel.In the center of the hotel you can see breadfruit tree. Invariably if you go for a meal there breadfruit curry is served. In the evening their speciality is Keerai vadai.
ReplyDeleteIn Kerala a mini jack fruit called Azani pala , the size of breadfruit. You can peel the fruit with hand unlike jackfruit. The fruit will be tasty like that of jackfruit. The tree will be taller than jackfruit tree and the wood is more valuable like that of teak wood.
K.Venkataraman