African-breadfruit seed (Treculia)

What it is

Treculia africana is a tree of the mulberry family, Moraceae, native to West and Central Africa at elevations up to about 1,500 metres. The name African breadfruit is shared with other plants, and the species has other names: wild jackfruit in Tanzania and Uganda, African boxwood in Malawi, and ukwa in Igbo, the most common name in Nigeria. The IUCN lists the species as Least Concern.

The useful part for food is the seed kernel inside a large, heavy fruit. The kernel is eaten more often than the fruit flesh, and the seeds are the material traded and milled.

Processing the fruit and seeds

The Wikipedia article describes the usual sequence. The fruit is heaped and left to ferment, and the seed mass is then macerated and washed in running water to remove slimy material. Cleaned seeds are air-dried and dehulled before they are sold. The source names the fruit fermentation as a step but does not describe its microbiology or timing.

Because the source gives no duration, temperature or yield for heaping, the page does not state them. Anyone following this process should treat the local practice as the reference, and should not read the sequence above as a tested method.

How the seeds are used

The fruit is typically boiled and roasted for soups and stews, or served with rice, maize or yams. The seed kernel is eaten more often than the fruit, and it is used in ukwa porridge. Seeds can be ground into flour for bread, pasta or baby food, and they can be pressed for edible oil. Dry-roasted seeds are eaten as a snack.

The sources do not give recipes or ratios for the flour or the oil.

Nutrition and claims

The article reports fresh seeds at about 38.3 per cent carbohydrate, 17.7 per cent crude protein and 15.9 per cent fat, and lists vitamins B1, B2, B3 and A and several minerals. It also claims that 100 g of raw seeds contains nearly twice the potassium of the same amount of bananas and more protein than soybeans. The page does not verify these figures, so this page reports them only as claims.

The article notes that traditional medicinal uses of the leaves and bark have not been scientifically tested. It gives no toxicity or safety warning for the seeds or fruit, and this page does not infer one from the absence of a warning.

Limits of the sources

The sources reviewed here do not give a shelf life for the dried seed, a method for cooking the kernel to a safe texture, or a fermentation time. They do not describe the microflora of the heaped fruit. These points stay open until a source gives them.