Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I want to talk about vegetarian meat substitute although it’s technically not a meat substitute because it doesn’t have any protein but it’s called Jackfruit and I’m talking about vegetarian stuff this month because I think it’s important I hear a lot of comments from people that they want to try vegetarian. They want to go to vegetarian knowing that there’s a lower protein need in chronic kidney disease so I want to talk to you about this particular product because it’s something that you can probably find locally and maybe even incorporate it into some meals.
What is jackfruit?
If you’ve ever seen the BuzzFeed Tasty recipes videos that kind of have a vegetarian slant to them you may have seen jackfruit being used in those recipes. There, it’s such a versatile fruit and product that people can use and it’s just a little different so you might be a little bit afraid of it but I hope by the end of this video that you’re going to have a better idea of what it actually is and what it’s actually good for.
It’s a species of tree fruit in the fig mulberry breadfruit family. It was originally from India but it’s grown in Southeast Asia, Indies, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia. It’s actually even grown  in the United States in Florida and that’s where a lot of the jackfruit that’s in grocery stores and available on Amazon for example is grown in Florida and shipped here in the US. So, it grows in a lot of different places. It needs to be a little bit tropical which is why Florida works because in Florida it rains like every day just a little bit but it rains. It’s also found in Hawaii because that’s a little bit of a tropical environment too. So, there’s some places that can be found it’s not necessarily imported it can be found in the United States so I wanted you to know that it’s a very safe you know choice if you’re buying from the United States because they’re going to have been reviewed and managed by the FDA.
Jackfruit is it’s kind of a weird name but it’s a fruit. It has a little bit of a sweet taste to it. If you eat it raw but in general in cooking it kind of has a bland taste. So, let’s talk
about why it’s good for a vegetarian diet.
In a vegetarian diet you may miss if you’re normally if you were used to eating meat and then now you’ve gone to vegetarian or vegan, this can taste like meat. It can have that shredded meat texture so it’s great for putting into meals that are like pulled pork or pulled chicken or tacos. It goes in all those things because it looks like and it gives you that visual idea of a meat but it also has the ability to take on the flavors of the spices that you’re using so you’re gonna have it take up those flavors but it’s not going to be like a lot of people who go vegetarian may think they need to use tofu or Tempeh and it’s not going to have that same texture. So, the texture of jackfruit when you actually eat it is more of a soft kind of like a whole fruit would be where you’re going to eat it and it’s going to kind of mush in your mouth, it’s not gonna be stringy, it’s not going be chewy in your dish.
I do want to remind you though that it does not have proteins so it’s very much like a fruit. It’s going to have you know fiber in it and that’s gonna be good and healthy for you but jackfruit doesn’t have protein so account for that and make sure that you’re getting protein in another way in that meal so that you’re not totally you know eliminating the protein from your day although as like I said with a chronic kidney disease you’re going to want to eat lower protein so you’re going to h...