Profiling of Health and Nutritional Components in Jackfruit Variety - ‘Muttomvarikka’

Jackfruit is an indigenous fruit crop of kerala in india and is widely grown as an important tree in kerala’s homesteads. It is popularly known as the poorman’s fruit. Growing on its own, without any chemical inputs, it has the potential to be identified as a therapeutic fruit grown organically. The greatest highlight of this fruit is that it is used as a vegetable, when raw and as a fruit when ripe. The State government had officially declared it as the official fruit of kerala, considering its spectrum of applications in the area of food and health security.

This fruit is one among the most ancient fruits indigenous to Western Ghats of India. It is a large edible summer fruit and is known to be the “Poor man’s food” (Jagadeesh et al., 2007). Locally, jackfruit is known to be “Chakka” while Sanskrit refers it to be Panasa (synonym: Atibruhatphala which means big fruit) (Prakash et al., 2009). Jackfruit is a good source of nutritional and antioxidant compounds which hold their potential for nutraceutical development. These phytonutrients promote opportunities for manufacturing value-added products (Umesh et al., 2010) Research shows that compounds such as flavonoids and phenolics exhibit antioxidant properties (Rice-Evans​ et al.,1996).
       
The 2 groups of jackfruits generally recognised among jackfruit treesin the state  are, ‘varikka’ with firm bulbs and ‘koozha’ with soft bulbs and fibrous bulbs. Even among these, there are variations in characters with place and propagation practices.
       
‘Muttom’ varikka is a jackfruit variety launched by the Kerala Agricultural University. The plants were produced by layering. The parent tree is reported to be selected from a locality called ‘Muttom’, of Alapuzha district of kerala, where there is a predominant population of varikka trees. Four young seedlings obtained from a single fruit of a parent were used for air layering anticipating varikka cultivators with satisfactory features. This experiment was conducted in 1967 after three months, one of the rooted layers were planted at College of Agriculture, Vellayani. The first female inflorescence emerged in 1970, when this tree was just 2 years and 4 months. At that time, the tree had attained a height of 7m and with a spread of 4 m. Six female flowers were produced, all of which set fruits and came to maturity. The fruits were harvested in august 1970.
       
Total weight - 7 kg, weight of bulbs - 3 to 6 kg, Length of fruit - 46 cm, width of fruit - 23 cm. The edible quantity of the fruit was adjudged and found to be of good quality. The fruits were crisp, fleshy, non fibrous, sweet and golden yellow in colour. The fruit took 7-15 days to ripen and had good keeping quality. Trials on vegetative propogation gave 72% success and in layering 84% in arching with ordinary jack seedling used as stock (Srivasan, 1970).
       
Thus by virtue of precocity and good edible quantities, ‘Muttom’varikka ranks high as a pedigree jack tree.
       
Considering its nutritional and health benefits, there is need to promote this fruit for health and prevention of lifestyle diseases. Since systematic documentation of nutrient and chemical constituents is lacking, an evaluation of nutrient and phyto chemical profile of local varieties like this variety would enlighten the health conscious population, regarding the nutritive and health excellence of this fruit.

Selection of Jackfruit-The variety Muttomvarikka was selected from the Instructional farm, College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram for the study. Analyses of both the ripe and raw stages were undertaken. Seeds and bulbs were analysed separately.
Design - CRD.
Type - Muttomvarikka.
Stages - 2 (Raw and ripe).
Edible portion - 2 (bulbs and seeds).
Replication - 4.
Standard methods were used to estimate the bioactive compounds.
 
 
 

Jackfruit exhibits huge variation in fruit size, shape, pulp, colour, taste, aroma and total soluble solids.Among them variation in pulp colour arethe main criteria for commercial exploitation of the genotypes. Tiwari and Vidyarthi  (2016) reported that ripe jackfruit is richer than apple, apricot, avocado and banana,in some minerals and vitamins.
       
The presence of a high percentage of starch in jackfruit perianth and seeds, as revealed from chemical and histological studies has raised interest in evaluating the maximum starch content with respect to maturity, variety and different climatic and agronomic conditions for finding out its probable utilization as a staple food. Low molecular weight carbohydrate of immature jack (10 to 12 weeks) and ripe (14 to 16 weeks) jackfruit were isolated (Rahman et al., 1999). Table 1 shows that raw seeds had higher content of Carbohydrate, Lowest content was seen in raw bulbs. The possibility of incorporating jackfruit seed starch as athickener and stabilizer in chili sauce has been investigated by Rengsutthi and Charoenrein (2011) The ability of jackfruit seedstarch to maintain the pH, titratable acidity and total soluble solids in chili sauce has been found when incorporated in1% level. As revealed by the study, jackfruit seed starch incorporated chili sauce has exhibited a superior quality when compared to chili sauce which was incorporated withcorn starch. Cereals bars with good sensory and nutritional properties have been developed by the incorporation of 11% jackfruit seed flour and 27% of dehydrated jackfruit pulp (Santos et al., 2011). Rahman et al., (1999) had reported that starch content of jackfruit gradually increased with maturity.
       
Protein content was significantly higher in ripe seeds (7.98 g). Vazhacharickal et al., (2015) reported that protein and carbohydrate concentration varied in seeds across india where some varieties contained 6.8% of protein in seeds. The protein content of seeds are seen to higher than bulbs, similar observations were reported by Bemmo et al. (2023).
       
Crude fibre content was seen to be on par in raw bulbs and raw seeds. Higher content was seen in Ripe bulbs.The fibre content of jackfruit seeds was reported to be consistent when processed and was higher than some conventional seeds like African breadfruit (Joy et al., 2018). Ranasinghe et al., (2019) reported that fibre content of raw fruit bulb varied between 2.6-3.6 gm/100 and that of ripe bulb varied from 1.0-1.5 g/100 g. The composition of jackfruit is seen to vary with variety. Ong et al. (2006) reported the fiber content of jackfruit to be 0.33-0.40 %,with no significant changes in different portions of the fruit at different ripening stages. Coronel (1983) has been reported that the fibre content of immature and ripe jackfruit is 2.6 and 0.8% respectively. Goswami et al., (2011) found slight variations in fibre content among the jackfruit fleshesin different varieties ranging from 0.5 to 0.9%.
       
Carotenoids are pigments responsible for the yellow-reddish colourof many foods and are related to important functions and physiological actions, preventing several chronic degenerative diseases. Six carotenoids were detected in the ripe jackfruit bulbs which included carotene α1b1, b Zeacarotene, α zeacarotene, carotene epoxide and carotene (Defaria et al., 2009). In this study ripe bulbs had higher carotene content (5.77 µg) lowest content was seen in raw seeds. (Table 2). Significantly higher vitamin content was found in ripe bulbs (15.06 mg/100 g) similarly Vitamin C content of ripe bulbs were higher. Sclem et al., (2019) reported higher vitamin C content in 3 strains of jackfruit pulp to ranged from 30.44 to 30.66 mg/100 g Significant variation in sodium content was seen among the parts the highest being observed in raw bulb (182 mg/100 g). Sammadar (1985) reported that that every 100 g of ripe flakes contained 287-323 mg potassium and 11-19 g carbohydrate.
       
Significant variation in sodium content was seen among the parts the highest being observed in raw bulb (182 mg/100 g). Sammadar (1985) reported that that every 100 g of ripe flakes contains 287-323 mg potassium and 11-19 g carbohydrate.
       
Mohammed et al (2019) reported that the most abundant mineral found in jackfruit seed powder was potassium (7.69 mg/g) followed by phosphorus (1.29 mg/g), magnesium (1.03 mg/g), calcium (0.41 mg/g) and sodium (0.05 mg/g). Joy et al., (2015) reported that potassium content of local jackfruit ripe bulb was reported as 330 mg, which is more or less similar to the potassium content of muttomvarikka.
       
Antioxidants are the compounds that are able to delay, retard or prevent oxidation process (Halliwell, 1997). It is seen from Table 3 that Muttom varikka ripe bulb and seed had higher level of antioxidants than the raw parts they protect thebody and biomolecules from the damage caused by genera-tion of excess free radicals. Jackfruit contains a wide rangeof phytonutrients such as carotenoids that can act as antioxi-dants (Baliga et al., 2011). Jagtap et al., (2010) state that the antioxidant activities of jackfruit flesh extracts are correlated with the totalphenolic and flavonoids content. According to Soong and Barlow (2004), fresh seed and flesh possess substantial ascorbicacid equivalent antioxidant effects and 27.7 and 0.9 gallicacid equivalent phenolic contents, which are believed to havecontributed to about 70% of the total antioxidant activity. Table 4 reveals that the alkaloid content varied from 15.67 µg to 41.65µg which was significantly different Flavanoid content was on par with raw and ripe bulbs, lowest content was observed ripe seeds, flavanoids are reported to be associated with anti-oxidant function (Talukdar et al., 2023). Significantly higher polyphenol content was observed in ripe bulbs.Highest antioxidant levels were observed in ripe seeds and lowest in raw seeds- 57.81 µg and 40.10 µg respectively. Polyphenols have a positive correlation with antioxidant activity, more is the amount of extracted polyphenols more is the antioxidant activity (Kajla​  et al., 2016). Pathak et al., (2017) reported that phenol was found to be positively correlated with flavonoid content.

Diversity of nutrients and secondary metabolities in this jackfruit variety shows that, it is functionally, nutritionally and medically important. There is need to utilize this ethnic fruit as a functional food and utilize its medicinal properties. Diversity of secondary metabolites present in the jackfruit shows that it is a functionally, nutritionally and medicinally important fruit. Such studies are essential for awareness among people for the proper use of jackfruit as a functional food and utilize the medicinal uses of jackfruit. An understanding of the indepth composition of this jackfruit variety, would substantiate its therapeutic potential and hence ensure its optimum consumption among the health conscious population.

The researchers acknowledge the physical infrastructural support of Kerala Agricultural University and financial support of Kerala State Science technology and Environment (KSCSTE).

There is no conflict of interest in the methodology and results of this study.