Biochemical Composition of Pulp and Seed of Wild Jack (Artocarpus hirsutus Lam.) Fruit

Wild jack (Artocarpus hirsutus Lam.) is an endemic perennial tree of Western Ghats of India. Wild jack, a timber purpose tree, is distributed in several Kaan community forests. Although local people consume unripe as well as fully ripe fruits and roasted seeds, wild jack is unrecognized as a fruit tree. It remains almost undocumented with respect to nutritional value in terms of biochemical composition. We carried out biochemical profiling of ripe fruits and seeds of wild jack. Every 100 g fruit pulp was composed of 12 g total soluble sugars, 16.7 g total starch, 441 μg total carotenoids (beta carotene equivalent) and 8.1 mg ascorbic acid, 0.4 mg GAE total phenol and showed total cupric reducing antioxidant activity of 1.9 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE). Every 100 g whole seed flour was composed of 6 g total soluble sugars, 6.6 g starch, 9.9 g total proteins, 3 mg GAE total phenol and 3.1 mg GAE total antioxidant capacity. Biochemical profiles of wild jackfruit and seeds were comparable with those of other Artocarpus fruits like jackfruit and bread fruit. Our findings suggest that wild jack deserves to be promoted as a minor fruit species of high nutritional importance and must be considered as a potential fruit crop species for further research.