1
00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:04,320
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,

2
00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:11,240
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren Volga bomb Here a bread flavored fruit.

3
00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:15,360
Speaker 1: If you're unfamiliar, it might sound far fetched, but in

4
00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:19,120
Speaker 1: the world's tropical regions, this starchy crop is a staple

5
00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:24,120
Speaker 1: bread fruit. Large prickly oval shaped fruit grown from Southeast

6
00:00:24,120 --> 00:00:27,840
Speaker 1: Asia to Hawaii, where it's also known as Ulu does

7
00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 1: in fact taste like a mix between freshly baked bread, plantains,

8
00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:37,159
Speaker 1: and potatoes, But bread fruits superpowers go well beyond flavor.

9
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:41,680
Speaker 1: This relative of the increasingly popular jackfruit is a promising

10
00:00:41,720 --> 00:00:45,440
Speaker 1: solution to food in security, particularly in tropical places where

11
00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:49,440
Speaker 1: bread fruit trees easily thrive. One bread fruit alone weighs

12
00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:52,640
Speaker 1: around seven pounds or three kilos, sometimes up to twelve

13
00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:56,120
Speaker 1: pounds or over five kilos, and contains enough carbohydrates for

14
00:00:56,160 --> 00:00:59,800
Speaker 1: one meal for a family of five. The bread fruit

15
00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:03,080
Speaker 1: is considered one of the highest yielding food plants on

16
00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:07,479
Speaker 1: the planet. One can produce fifty to fifty fruits per

17
00:01:07,600 --> 00:01:12,240
Speaker 1: year and sustain a family of four for decades. We

18
00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:15,680
Speaker 1: spoke by email with Diane Ragoni, director of the Hawaii

19
00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:20,440
Speaker 1: based National Tropical Botanic Gardens bread Fruit Institute. She explained

20
00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:24,120
Speaker 1: that bread fruit is also a highly sustainable crop quote.

21
00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:27,240
Speaker 1: It has long been an important subsistence crop for many

22
00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:31,080
Speaker 1: tropical communities. Over the past decade, farmers and families have

23
00:01:31,160 --> 00:01:34,080
Speaker 1: begun planting more bread fruit trees for local food and

24
00:01:34,160 --> 00:01:38,240
Speaker 1: economic security. Another factor is the critical need to adopt

25
00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:42,920
Speaker 1: and expand sustainable, regenerative agriculture cropping systems for the health

26
00:01:42,959 --> 00:01:47,520
Speaker 1: and well being of people and the planet. Bread Fruit,

27
00:01:47,720 --> 00:01:51,200
Speaker 1: which likely stemmed from its ancestor bread nut in New Guinea,

28
00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:55,240
Speaker 1: has been a main crop among Pacific islanders for millennia.

29
00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:59,800
Speaker 1: When early European explorers and colonizers saw bread fruit in

30
00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:02,560
Speaker 1: the Cific Islands, they took it with them to Jamaica

31
00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:04,560
Speaker 1: as a staple crop for the people that they had

32
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:09,680
Speaker 1: enslaved there, but the existing starch crop, plantains, remained more popular.

33
00:02:10,040 --> 00:02:12,240
Speaker 1: It took about fifty years for bread fruit to make

34
00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:16,600
Speaker 1: its way into Caribbean cuisine. Bread fruits roots in Hawaii

35
00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:20,560
Speaker 1: go back even further. Ancient voyage in Polynesians brought the

36
00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:23,520
Speaker 1: tree with them across hundreds or thousands of miles and

37
00:02:23,600 --> 00:02:26,800
Speaker 1: canoes when they settled the islands. A Crops like this

38
00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:30,800
Speaker 1: are sometimes called canoe crops. The fruit was integral to

39
00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:34,280
Speaker 1: ancient Hawaiian culture and spiritual life for hundreds of years

40
00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:38,040
Speaker 1: before the islands had any contact with the Europeans. Historic

41
00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:40,560
Speaker 1: Hawaiian bread fruit groves may have been large enough to

42
00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:45,440
Speaker 1: sustain seventy people. Some of Hawaii's present day trees are

43
00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:50,320
Speaker 1: the offspring of groves planted centuries ago. Bread Fruit trees

44
00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:55,320
Speaker 1: now grow across Earth's tropical belt, including in Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Ghana,

45
00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:59,600
Speaker 1: and Myanmar. Rigoni says it's easily perishable, only good for

46
00:02:59,639 --> 00:03:02,520
Speaker 1: a few is after harvest, which means it's tough to

47
00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:06,680
Speaker 1: find outside the tropics, but online retailers like Miami Fruit

48
00:03:06,919 --> 00:03:10,920
Speaker 1: do ship it across the mainland United States. Bread fruit

49
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,160
Speaker 1: is safe for eating and cooking across all development stages.

50
00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:17,320
Speaker 1: Most people use it when it's mature but still firm,

51
00:03:17,639 --> 00:03:21,280
Speaker 1: and either boil steam or bake it. As a starchy crop,

52
00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:24,320
Speaker 1: bread fruit can replace potatoes or pasta, and it's a

53
00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:27,600
Speaker 1: great alternative for potato chips or French fries. But when

54
00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:31,000
Speaker 1: it's green and hard, it tastes similar to artichoke, But

55
00:03:31,160 --> 00:03:34,440
Speaker 1: after it's ripe, it's also tasty when simply eaten raw.

56
00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:38,440
Speaker 1: When very ripe bread fruit has a creamy, sweet flavor

57
00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:42,400
Speaker 1: perfect for desserts or pure aid for baby food. According

58
00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:45,800
Speaker 1: to Ragoni, these serving methods hardly scratch the surface of

59
00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:50,360
Speaker 1: bread fruit's potential. She said. Entrepreneurs are processing fresh fruit,

60
00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:53,920
Speaker 1: such as steaming and freezing wedges or drying and grinding

61
00:03:53,920 --> 00:03:57,320
Speaker 1: it into flour and making value added products like fries,

62
00:03:57,440 --> 00:04:01,920
Speaker 1: to Stana's liquors and more to supply local and export markets.

63
00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:04,240
Speaker 1: If you don't live in a bread fruit growing area,

64
00:04:04,480 --> 00:04:07,040
Speaker 1: can you readily order bread fruit on a restaurant menu?

65
00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:10,160
Speaker 1: Not yet, but if you have the good fortune to

66
00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:13,000
Speaker 1: do so, then do so. It will support bread fruit

67
00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:18,320
Speaker 1: farmers and entrepreneurs. Health benefits abound with bread fruit. It's

68
00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:21,880
Speaker 1: an energy rich food brimming with complex carbohydrates, fiber, and

69
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:27,120
Speaker 1: minerals like potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and sink. It's

70
00:04:27,120 --> 00:04:29,640
Speaker 1: also gluten free and can be dried or ground into

71
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:34,520
Speaker 1: gluten free flour. Bread Fruit boasts some other important advantages.

72
00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:37,880
Speaker 1: It's a natural insect repellent. The male bread fruit flour

73
00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:40,720
Speaker 1: is known to repel mosquitoes. The sap from bread fruit

74
00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:43,920
Speaker 1: can be used to cold water crafts and homes, while

75
00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:47,440
Speaker 1: fibers from the trees bark are used to create mosquito nets, clothing,

76
00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:51,040
Speaker 1: and artwork. The leaves and fallen fruit make nutritious feed

77
00:04:51,080 --> 00:04:54,640
Speaker 1: for animals. The trees bear fifty to a d and

78
00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:57,440
Speaker 1: fifty fruits annually, but they're more than a means to

79
00:04:57,480 --> 00:04:59,839
Speaker 1: an end. They grow to eighty five feet that's tw

80
00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:03,240
Speaker 1: six ms tall and produce wood sturdy enough for canoe

81
00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:07,920
Speaker 1: outriggers and even houses, and they help anchor soil, improving

82
00:05:07,920 --> 00:05:11,200
Speaker 1: the watershed management in areas where they're planted. They also

83
00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:15,440
Speaker 1: provide much needed shelter to plant pollinators and seed dispersers

84
00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:23,880
Speaker 1: like birds, bees, and fats. Today's episode was written by

85
00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:27,039
Speaker 1: Stephanie Vermilion and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on

86
00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:29,320
Speaker 1: this and lots of other topics that aren't just loafing

87
00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:33,440
Speaker 1: around because breadfruit of visit house stuff works dot com.

88
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:36,280
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts

89
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:39,160
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

90
00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:40,960
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.