📊 Full nutrition facts — per 100g
| Nutrient | Amount | % Daily value | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 95 kcal | 5% | |
| Carbohydrates | 23.2g | 8% | |
| Dietary fibre | 1.5g | 5% | |
| Sugars | 19.1g | — | |
| GI | ~50 — Low boundary | — | |
| Vitamin C | 13.7mg | 15% | |
| Vitamin B6 | 0.33mg | 20% | |
| Potassium | 448mg | 10% | |
| Magnesium | 29mg | 7% | |
| Niacin B3 | 0.92mg | 6% | |
| Thiamine B1 | 0.09mg | 6% | |
| Carotenoids | present | — |
Based on Australian NRV. Source: FSANZ Australian Food Composition Database.
📈 Glycaemic index (GI)
💊 Key vitamins & minerals
✅ Health benefits
Unripe green jackfruit has a uniquely fibrous, meaty texture when cooked that closely mimics pulled pork, chicken and beef in both texture and its ability to absorb flavours. This has made it the most successful whole-food meat substitute globally — used in tacos, pulled 'pork' sandwiches, curries and stir-fries. Unlike processed meat substitutes, jackfruit is a whole food with no additives, processing or synthetic ingredients. Its neutral flavour when unripe means it takes on whatever marinade or spice blend is applied.
Jackfruit is emerging as an important food security crop: a single mature jackfruit tree produces 100–200 fruits per year, each weighing 5–35kg, providing extraordinary caloric yield per tree. It tolerates drought, poor soils and high heat that would kill most fruit crops. In South and Southeast Asia and parts of Africa, jackfruit is recognised by the FAO as a climate-change resilient food security tree crop. In tropical Australia, jackfruit trees grow with minimal management and produce enormous quantities of fruit.
Jackfruit provides 20% of daily vitamin B6 (essential for neurotransmitter synthesis and homocysteine regulation), meaningful niacin B3 and thiamine B1, and 448mg of potassium per 100g — nearly 3× the potassium of a banana per gram of fruit. This potassium content supports blood pressure regulation and fluid balance. The B vitamin profile makes jackfruit a useful energy-metabolism supporter for active people.
Ripe jackfruit contains carotenoids (including beta-carotene in yellow-flesh varieties), flavanones (naringenin) and lignans (isoflavones) that contribute to its antioxidant activity. Traditional use of jackfruit in Ayurvedic medicine for inflammation and digestive health has biological plausibility from these compounds. The seeds of jackfruit — often discarded — are nutritionally exceptional, containing 6–7g of protein per 100g and significant resistant starch.
⚠️ Who should limit or avoid
Jackfruit is in the Moraceae (mulberry/fig) family. People with birch pollen allergy or latex-fruit syndrome can cross-react with jackfruit, experiencing oral allergy syndrome (tingling, itching in mouth and throat). The reaction is more common with raw jackfruit and is often reduced by cooking. Introduce cautiously if you have known birch pollen, latex, banana or avocado allergy.
Ripe jackfruit contains 19.1g of sugar per 100g — high for a fruit. Despite a GI of ~50, the glycaemic load of a large serving is significant. People with diabetes should be aware that large servings of ripe jackfruit can affect blood glucose meaningfully. Green (unripe) jackfruit is a much safer option for people managing blood sugar.
Jackfruit has been reported to have mild antiplatelet (blood-thinning) properties in some traditional medicine literature. While this is not definitively established in clinical research, some surgeons recommend limiting jackfruit in the weeks before elective surgery. Discuss with your doctor if you are scheduled for surgery and eat jackfruit regularly.
🛒 How to select & buy jackfruit
Ripe jackfruit: yellow-orange flesh, very sweet and fragrant (smells like a blend of banana, pineapple and vanilla), eaten fresh or in desserts and smoothies. The skin should be slightly soft, yellow-green to yellow, with a sweet tropical smell. Unripe green jackfruit: white flesh, essentially flavourless, fibrous and meaty when cooked — used as a meat substitute in savoury dishes. Available canned in brine or fresh at Asian grocery stores. For cooking as a meat substitute, choose young green jackfruit.
Fresh whole jackfruit releases a white latex sap when cut that is extremely sticky. Oil your knife and hands with vegetable oil before cutting. Cut into quarters, then remove the fibrous core. Pull out the yellow arils (fleshy seed pockets) — these are the edible ripe flesh. Remove the seed from each aril (seeds are edible when boiled or roasted). The white fibrous strands around the arils are edible but have a bland, stringy texture. For a first experience, canned jackfruit (in brine for savoury use, in syrup for sweet use) removes all this complexity.
Use canned young green jackfruit in brine (not syrup). Drain and rinse well. Pull apart the fibres with your hands or two forks — the texture should resemble shredded pork. Sauté with BBQ sauce, cumin, smoked paprika, garlic and onion. Cook until slightly caramelised, 10–15 minutes. The result is almost indistinguishable from slow-cooked pulled pork in texture. Serve in tacos, sandwiches or rice bowls. The protein content is lower than meat (2g vs 25g per 100g) — combine with legumes or tofu for protein completeness.
🧊 Storage tips & shelf life
Whole uncut jackfruit: store at room temperature. Unripe green jackfruit keeps 3–7 days while slowly ripening. Ripe jackfruit deteriorates rapidly — use within 1–2 days of full ripeness. The characteristic strong tropical smell indicates ripeness. In tropical Australian conditions, ripe jackfruit can deteriorate within a day in hot weather.
Cut ripe jackfruit keeps 3–5 days refrigerated in a sealed container. The smell is very strong and will permeate other refrigerator contents — always seal completely. Cooked jackfruit (pulled jackfruit preparation): refrigerates well for 4–5 days. Rinse canned jackfruit before storing — brine can become slimy.
Ripe jackfruit arils freeze well — portion into bags, seal and freeze. Cooked pulled jackfruit (prepared with seasonings) also freezes excellently for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight or reheat directly in a pan. Batch-cooking pulled jackfruit and freezing in burrito-sized portions is an efficient meal prep approach.
📖 About jackfruit — complete guide
Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is native to the Western Ghats of India, where it has been cultivated for at least 3,000–6,000 years. It spread through South and Southeast Asia, becoming a staple food in South India (where it is called kathal or chakka), Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. The Portuguese brought jackfruit to Brazil via their Indian Ocean trade routes in the 16th century, where it became naturalised in the Atlantic forest regions. In Kerala, India, jackfruit is considered the state fruit and is deeply embedded in the culinary tradition — eaten ripe, cooked unripe as a curry, made into chips, and used in every stage of ripeness. The tree is extraordinarily productive and longevous — mature trees can produce for over 100 years.
The global vegan pulled jackfruit trend, which began around 2015–2016 in the United States and the UK, transformed jackfruit from a largely unknown tropical curiosity in Western markets to one of the most widely available plant-based products in mainstream supermarkets. The trend was driven by food bloggers and vegan YouTubers demonstrating that canned green jackfruit in brine, when seasoned and cooked with BBQ spices, produced a texture almost identical to slow-cooked pulled pork. This was genuinely surprising to mainstream food culture — a fruit that behaves like meat. The commercial response was rapid: by 2018, major UK supermarkets (Sainsbury's, Tesco) had jackfruit products on shelves. Australian supermarkets followed by 2019–2020. The limitations — jackfruit's low protein content relative to meat (1.7g vs 25g per 100g) meaning it works best combined with legumes — do not diminish its value as a whole-food ingredient for texture and flavour absorption.