Researchers Say Breadfruit Could Be the Next Superfood

Breadfruit is sustainable, environmentally friendly and a highly productive harvest.

A fruit that has been used in countries around the world for centuries is getting the thumbs up from a team of researchers from British Columbia.

Breadfruit, which grows in abundance in tropical and South Pacific countries, has long been a staple of many people. The fruits can be eaten when ripe, or dried and ground into flour and used for many types of meals, explains UBC Okanagan researcher Susan Murch.

“Breadfruit is a traditional Pacific Island staple with the potential to improve global food security and alleviate diabetes,” said Murch, chemistry professor at the newly created Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. “While humans have survived with it for thousands of years, there has been a lack of basic scientific knowledge of the health effects of a breadfruit-based diet in humans and animals.”

Breadfruit can be harvested, dried, and ground into a gluten-free flour. For the project, the researchers had four breadfruits from the same tree in Hawaii delivered to the Murch Lab at UBC Okanagan. PhD student Ying Liu led the study examining the digestive and health effects of a breadfruit-based diet.

“Detailed and systematic studies on the health effects of a breadfruit diet have not yet been carried out, and we wanted to contribute to the development of breadfruit as a sustainable, environmentally friendly and high-production culture,” says Liu.

The few studies that have been done on the product have been to examine the glycemic index of breadfruit – with a low glycemic index, it is comparable to many common staple foods such as wheat, cassava, yam and potatoes.

“The aim of our current study was to determine if a breadfruit flour diet posed serious health concerns,” said Liu, who conducted her research with colleagues in the Natural Health and Food Products Research Group at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and the Breadfruit Institute of the National Tropical Botanic Garden in Hawaii.

Researchers designed a series of studies – using dehydrated breadfruit flour – that could provide data on the effects of a breadfruit-based diet fed to mice, as well as an enzyme digestion model.

The researchers found that breadfruit protein is more easily digested than wheat protein in the enzyme digestion model. And mice fed breadfruit had a significantly higher growth rate and body weight than mice fed standard diet.

Liu also noted that mice on the breadfruit diet had significantly higher daily water consumption than mice on the wheat diet. And at the end of the three-week trial, body composition was similar between the mice fed the breadfruit and the wheat diet.

“As the first full, fully-designed study of the breadfruit diet, our data showed that a breadfruit diet was not toxic,” says Liu. “A basic understanding of the health effects of digestion and nutrition of breadfruit is necessary and essential to establish breadfruit as a staple or functional food in the future.”

Breadfruit uses are nutritious and sustainable, and could make advances in food sustainability for many populations around the world, she adds. For example, the average daily grain consumption in the United States is 189 grams (6.67 ounces) per day. Liu suggests that if a person eats the same amount of cooked breadfruits, they can get up to 57 percent of their daily fiber needs, more than 34 percent of their protein needs, while consuming vitamin C, potassium, iron and calcium, and phosphorus.

“Overall, these studies support the use of breadfruit as part of a healthy, nutritionally balanced diet,” says Liu. “Flour made from breadfruit is a gluten-free, low glycemic, nutrient-rich, and complete protein option for modern foods.”

The study was recently published in PLUS ONE.

Reference: “Breadfruit Flour Is a Healthy Option for Modern Food and Food Security” by Ying Liu, Paula N. Brown, Diane Ragone, Deanna L. Gibson, and Susan J. Murch, July 23, 2020 PLUS ONE.
DOI: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0236300