Jackfruit Seed

The jackfruit tree produces the largest tree-borne fruit in the world, sometimes weighing over twenty kilograms. Inside the bumpy green rind are many yellow fleshy segments, called bulbs, and each bulb wraps a single seed. A large fruit can contain a few hundred seeds.

The seed is oval, about two to four centimeters long, covered by a thin, pale, papery layer over a hard-looking white seed coat and a pale, starchy kernel. Cooked seeds have a soft, floury texture and a mild flavor that people compare to chestnut, with a faint note of potato or sweet beans.

Seeds are sold fresh in markets where the fruit is eaten, and also as dried seeds, canned seeds and flour.

The jackfruit tree is native to the Western Ghats of southwestern India, and it spread early to other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where it grows in humid lowland conditions. It was carried by traders and colonists to East Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean and other tropical regions.

The English word jackfruit comes from the Portuguese jaca, which was adapted from the Malayalam word chakka. Portuguese travelers in the sixteenth century recorded the term on the Malabar coast. The genus name Artocarpus derives from the Greek for bread fruit, as it also includes breadfruit, and heterophyllus means different leaves, a reference to the variably lobed leaves on young and old branches.

The jackfruit has been cultivated in India for thousands of years and appears in ancient Sanskrit and Tamil literature, where it is among the three prized fruits of the south. Both the flesh and the seed were consumed, and the seeds were a valuable food because they could be boiled, roasted or dried and stored beyond the fruit season.

In India's rural kitchens, seeds are cooked in curries with spices, added to dals, or roasted in embers and eaten with salt. In Kerala and Karnataka they are used in dishes such as chakkakuru mezhukkupuratti, a stir-fry with chili, and in Indonesia and Malaysia the seeds are boiled in the syrups of sweet snacks or stewed in savory dishes.

The tree became well known as a famine and subsistence food in times of hardship because of its heavy yields. In the 2010s, the jackfruit gained attention as a plant-based meat substitute made from the unripe flesh, and this raised interest in using the seeds, which are otherwise a by-product, for flours and snacks. Studies have looked at jackfruit seed starch and flour as food ingredients.

Boiled or roasted, the seeds are eaten as a snack, added to curries, stews, dals and stir-fries, or mashed into pastes and sweet fillings. In some regions the peeled seeds are sliced and fried into chips or ground with spices into chutneys.

Dried seeds are milled into flour, used in small proportions in breads, noodles and flatbreads, and the starch is studied as a thickener and as a base for edible films. In rural areas the seeds may be buried in sand and kept for use later in the year.

Some traditional practitioners use seed preparations as a digestive tonic, although such uses are not backed by clinical research.

Cooked jackfruit seeds provide starch, protein, fiber, and minerals such as potassium and magnesium, as well as several plant compounds that are the subject of laboratory research. Review articles on jackfruit describe antioxidant and other activities mainly from cell and animal studies, so human benefits are not established. Seeds contain heat-sensitive protein inhibitors and lectins, which are largely deactivated by thorough cooking, so they are best eaten as a cooked starchy food in moderate amounts.