BUTTER FRUIT

BUTTER FRUIT

Are avocado and butter fruit one and the same. They have different skin colors though. Butter fruit is darker... I tried butter fruit milk shake at a fruit shop and it was delicious. I tried to make the same thing at home and it turned out bitter!!! We had to throw away the whole thing.. I would love to try it again... Any suggestions here Butterfruit, or safou – also called bush mango – has been compared to avocado. It's an oil-producing fruit with a large seed and plumpy texture. Despite its somewhat sour taste, it is quite popular in parts of West and Central Africa, including the DRC, Benin, Nigeria and Central African Republic"The trees have dark green leaves, and the fruit is copious and hangs down. So, you have a wonderful visual impression. We really enjoyed the season when they came into fruition, and I ate them with great gusto. There are people who prepare it as a snack on a roadside grill [where they are roasted]

How to Prepare:

Cut the butter fruit into two pieces; discard the big seed from it. Extract the inner greenish yellow pulp from the fruit with the help of spoon. The green outer covering should be discarded as well.Add milk and sugar to the Butter fruit pulp and grind it in a mixer grinder. Keep the milk shake in a refrigerator for 2 hr. Serve cool.Butter fruit milk shake is one of most popular fruit shakes in Karnataka because of its great taste.Butter Fruit is grown in Coorg in Karnataka. It looks greenish and its pulp is almost greenish yellow. You will find this fruit only in the winter season from November to February/March. If the greenish outer cover is turning brown then don’t purchase it. This fruit costs a bit, but once you taste this fruit with sugar or prepare milk shake, you will feel like having it regularly. This fruit pulp/juice by itself is tasteless and cannot be had without adding sugar to it.

butterfruit are available for a very limited time in August and September. This limited availability breaks my heart in so many ways—coming from the States where they’re available/imported year-round, it’s an… adjustment… living in a place where avocados are scarce. Perhaps demand from avocado-lovers like me will eventually make them a priority crop in India. As is, they’re simply not well-known here.In August and September, you can find them in most fruit markets pretty easily, but you might have to come back a few times since they disappear and reappear throughout the season. Here’s a warning—highlight it, flag it, underline it—few of the avocados that hit the market are edible! Only purchase an avocado that is already ripe. If you buy hard avocados expecting them to ripen by placing them in a paper bag or letting them sit on the counter, there’s a very good chance that they won’t ripen. Avocados here are notorious for going from underripe to moldy and overripe within the course of an afternoon. They’ll be hard and green on one half of the fruit; black and molding on the other.So, while you can find avocados in India, it’s only for a few months.  Even in these two months, they may or may not appear on the shelves. And I repeat—only buy avocados from the shelf that are already ripe. I seriously tossed out 10 avocados hoping they’d ripen to no avail. I could write another 500-word diatribe about my disappointment about the butterfruit market here, but I’ll abstain and enjoy a delicious papaya instead.

Health benifits

Avocados, like  olives,  are high in mono-unsaturated fats and calories. However, they are very rich in dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals and packed with numerous health benefiting plant nutrients.Their creamy pulp is a very good source of mono-unsaturated fatty acids like oleic and palmitoleic acids as well as omega-6 poly-unsaturated fatty acid linoleic acid. Research studies suggest that Mediterranean diet that is rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acids help lower LDL or bad cholesterol and increase HDL or good-cholesterol, thereby, prevent coronary artery disease and strokes by favoring healthy blood lipid profile.

They are a very good source of soluble and insoluble dietary fiber. 100 g fruit provides 6.7 g or about 18% of recommended daily intake. Dietary fibers help lower blood cholesterol levels and prevent constipation.

In addition, the fruit, like persimmons, contain high concentration of tannin. Tannin, a poly-phenolic compound, which was once labeled as an anti-nutritional agent is in-fact, has beneficial anti-inflammatory, anti-ulcer and anti-oxidant properties.

Its flesh contains health promoting flavonoid poly-phenolic antioxidants such as cryptoxanthin, lutein, zea-xanthin, beta and alpha carotenes in small amounts. Together, these compounds act as protective scavengers against oxygen-derived free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) that play a role in aging and various disease processes.

Total antioxidant strength (ORAC) of avocados (raw, Hass variety) is 1933 µmol TE/100 g.

They are also good in many health-benefiting vitamins. Vitamin A, E, and K are especially concentrated in its creamy pulp.

Avocados are also excellent sources of minerals like iron, copper, magnesium, and manganese. Magnesium is essential for bone strengthening and has a cardiac-protective role as well. Manganese is used by the body as a co-factor for the antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase. Iron and copper are required in the production of red blood cells.

Fresh avocado pear is a very rich source of potassium. 100 g of fruit provides 485 mg or about 10% of daily-required levels. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids where it helps regulate heart rate and blood pressure, countering bad effects of sodium.

                                                                  Prof. John Kurakar