Posted on 01/28/2020 2:28:49 PM PST by nickcarraway
If youve never heard of jackfruit, keep your eyes open: Youll start noticing it everywhere.
Jackfruit is a very large tropical fruit often used as a meat substitute. It packs some nutritional wallop, and the fact that you can cook, chunk or shred it like chicken or pork makes it a go-to main ingredient in many vegetarian and vegan dishes.
Its flavor is neutral, and it takes to all kinds of seasonings.
Jackfruit is native to India, and also grows in Southeast Asia, Mexico, the Caribbean and South America. It ranges from 15 pounds to a whopping 70.
For cooking, freshly picked, non-ripe jackfruit generally is used. Once ripe, jackfruit can be used in sweeter dessert preparations.
It's available whole or sliced into more manageable pieces. Unripe, it's green and unyielding; as it ripens, it softens, turns yellow, gets some brown spots and starts to smell fruity.
It's also sold canned, sometimes in brine or syrup, and you can find various types in specialty and Asian food stores and, increasingly, traditional supermarkets.
Now, with many people looking for plant-based alternatives to meat, jackfruit's trajectory is up, up, up.
Robert Schueller, head of marketing at Melissa's Produce, a specialty produce company, has noted that upward trend for several years.
"It was about five years ago that the fruit started to really take off," he says. "Vegetarians and vegans found out how this fruit could be used as a 'meat substitute" for pulled pork sandwiches and as a taco meat."
As word spread in the U.S. about jackfruit's versatility, Schueller says, Melissa's went from selling a few cases a week to thousands of cases a week. Melissa's also offers plastic containers of jackfruit pods containing just one or two servings.
Jackfruit also is popping up on menus across the country, at vegan and vegetarian restaurants, yes, but also in dishes at more mainstream establishments. Tomatillo, a Mexican restaurant in Dobbs Ferry, New York, has a quesadilla and taco made with jackfruit nestled in alongside other meaty and vegetarian offerings. In Chicago, Alulu Brewpub serves up Vegan Sicilian Jackfruit Flatbread on a menu alongside in-house cured pork belly.
Angela Means, owner of the vegan Jackfruit Café in Los Angeles, says people are turning to a vegan diet for many reasons, including environmental, health and animal-rights concerns.
"We eat meat because of the texture and the spices. Jackfruit is a great substitute," Means says. "It's one of the best choices for us because we can mimic meat, Jackfruit grows in abundance, and it has potassium, fiber, magnesium, lots of nutrients. We put it in tacos, and we make sandwiches, like a barbecue pulled 'pork.'"
Jackfruit Café also serves a "fish patty" made of jackfruit combined with seaweed.
"You wouldnt miss anything we could give you our taco and you wouldn't even know it's vegan," Means says.
Jackfruit Café tries to educate people in its community about jackfruit and alternatives to a meat-eating diet, she says, predicting, "in seven to 10 years, jackfruit will be as popular as beef."
I have always found the flavor of jackfruit unpleasant.
Now lychees though, I could eat barrels of those.
Really ? thats nothing! Ive eaten nothing but plants for at least 3650 days now (over 10 years). And I also contend that every aspect of my life has been greatly improved. Now who is right?
Nope. We eat meat because it contains nutrients we can not get any other way. Not even from Jackfruit.
fig tree
Just take care you don't swallow a hedgehog by mistake.
Durian
I can assure you with 100% certainty that that is not true
It needs a new name to catch on in the states.
I lived in Indonesia for a while. The parks had some durian trees. The signs on the trees basically said “Be careful! If a durian falls on you, it will kill you.”
Fine, eat jackfruit. But don’t try to convince me it is a meat “substitute”.
I like a large variety of foods. I make my own kimchee for example. But I don’t eat anything to be a substitute for meat. Meat is meat, fruit is fruit, veggies are veggies, carbs are carbs.
If meat is so repulsive, why work so hard at trying to make veggies appear to be meat? (unsuccessfully, I add).
The only meat substitute is more meat.
Jackfruit is delicious. However, it’s not meet and never will be. The seeds can be used in soups and it takes like beans. They aren’t meat either.
Both of us are!
Diet is always specific to the individual.
Not eating animal products tends to cause your brain function to deteriorate and your health over time to fail.
Not to mention that as a vegan you eat over processed and unnatural foods.
Sad really.
And I can assure you that it is not.
Not eating animal products tends to cause your brain function to deteriorate and your health over time to fail.
False! No scientific evidence for that whatsoever. Plus I have over 10 years of anecdotal evidence myself. Nothing you have said is true for me at all.
Not to mention that as a vegan you eat over processed and unnatural foods.
Again, not true. Where are you getting your information from? I eat exactly 0 processed and unnatural foods. I eat only 100% whole food plants. Not even oils and juices because they do not exist naturally they need to be extracted from the whole so I dont touch them. And you act as if Omnivores eat clean all the time. What the hell you call a big Mac? What the hell you call Chick-fil-A? Natural and unprocessed? Sad really.
That seems to violate the “eat local” mantra of the hip and trendy places.
What’s the carbon footprint to get this to the US?
It is Disgusting. Smells like dirty locker socks from the old PE days in junior high.
Me too! I have been on that “Carnivore” diet for over a year and a half - and had great results right away! Acid Re-flux = gone! Bloated feeling after eating = gone! Sleep better. Energy better. Weight down 40lbs and no food cravings.
Some changes were subtle and I didn’t notice them right away. After a year I noticed my skin condition and color were much improved too. Havent used my sun tan lamp in almost 2 winters since starting the carnivore diet. Fingernails look great. Used to get cracked/broken nails and dried skin tags along where the nail edge and skin meet. Perfect looking.
Endurance and muscle strength slowly improving. Leg muscle cramps almost a thing of the past. No longer need a cane for getting around! All this and taking NO prescription medications. (occasional headache = occasional aspirin)
You're really the snarky one here, not me.
“If I come across one Ill give it a try.”
I came across one in the Meijers store. It was $36. I did not give it a try.
It was there for quite a while.
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