This Giant Fruit May Solve World Hunger – And It Tastes Like Pulled Pork

This gigantic fruit has been hailed as a miracle crop and it may be a solution to world hunger.

The 'jackfruit' is the largest tree-grown fruit in the world and it is said to smell like rotting onions, but tastes like pulled pork. Just one fruit contains hundreds of seeds and can weigh between 10 and 100 pounds.

The fruit is grown in south and south-east Asia and it is hoped to be a replacement for wheat, corn and other staple crops that are under threat from climate change.

Each jackfruit has hundreds of fruit bulbs with a highly nutritious seed, rich in Vitamin C, protein, potassium, calcium, and iron.

Jackfruit is used in a variety of ways in Bangladesh, where it makes its way into stir fries, juice, chips, curry, even ice cream.

While extremely popular in Bangladesh, it is avoided in India, its country of origin where 75% of the jackfruit crop goes to waste, and where it could make a massive difference to the country's starving inhabitants.

Shree Padre, the editor of the Indian magazine Adike Patrike, told the Business Insider UK,

Countries like Vietnam, Philippines, and Malaysia are minting money from jackfruit. Sri Lanka proudly calls it [the] 'tree of rice'. But ironically, in [the] motherland of jackfruit, we still haven’t understood jackfruit's importance.

Indian advocates of the miracle fruit are currently working to change its perception, as it's seen as a poor man's fruit, by alerting the public to the fact that each jackfruit tree is worth $151, due to the various products that can be made from its bark, fruit, and natural latex.