Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus L.) is a member of the Moraceae family. It is considered an underexploited tropical fruit tree (Swami et al., 2016). Jackfruit originated in India and is now widely cultivated in South and South-East Asia, in the Caribbean and Latin America and some parts of Africa, including Kenya and Uganda (Ranasinghe et al., 2019). Jackfruit is the largest edible fruit with an annual average yield of 50-80 tons of fruits per hectare of land (Balamaze et al., 2019). Jackfruit comprises 25%-35% aril, 7%-12% seed, and 50%-58% nonedible portion (Cruz-Casillas et al., 2021). Jackfruits are a good source of vitamins (A, C, thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin) and minerals (calcium, potassium, iron, sodium, and zinc) (Swami et al., 2012). Jackfruit is perishable and cannot be stored for a long time because of its high moisture and sugar contents, making the fruit susceptible to decomposition by microbial and enzymatic activity (Swami et al., 2016). The conversion of jackfruit aril into a dried form would therefore extend its shelf-life.Jackfruit powder produced from the jackfruit aril can be used as a flavoring ingredient in food products such as ice cream, yogurt, biscuits, and muffins (Swami et al., 2016).Dehydration of fruit pulp to make leather effectively preserves nutrients and taste for the off-season (Diamante et al., 2014). In past decades, the main drying processes for preparing fruit leathers were solar drying, drum drying, and cabinet drying with low cost of production (Pua et al., 2010). These conventional drying processes have adverse effects on product quality, attributable to the relatively high temperatures and long duration (Praveen Kumar et al., 2006).Refractance window (RW) drying is a novel drying technique used to preserve valuable nutrients, as drying occurs at relatively low

The nutritional state of large segments of the African population remains alarming despite the positive socio-economic development that is taking place. The most significant nutritional problems include undernutrition, iron deficiency and vitamin A deficiency. Malnutrition and deficiencies also exacerbate a number of other diseases and health conditions. Besides undernutrition, the prevalence of overnutrition and obesity on the African continent are rising, as are the associated health conditions such as diabetes and coronary heart diseases. This chapter outlines the unique nutritional and bioactive properties of Traditional African Foods (TAFs) and their potential to contribute to the alleviation of undernutrition, overnutrition and associated health problems. Special emphasis is placed on vegetables, fruits, cereals, edible insects, small fish species, mushrooms, legumes, sesame, tuber and root crops. Some of the identified health benefits of these TAFs include lowering of serum cholesterol, anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular disease prevention and anti-hypertensive properties.

The nutritional state of large segments of the African population remains alarming despite the positive socio-economic development that is taking place. The most significant nutritional problems include undernutrition, iron deficiency and vitamin A deficiency. Malnutrition and deficiencies also exacerbate a number of other diseases and health conditions. Besides undernutrition, the prevalence of overnutrition and obesity on the African continent are rising, as are the associated health conditions such as diabetes and coronary heart diseases. This chapter outlines the unique nutritional and bioactive properties of Traditional African Foods (TAFs) and their potential to contribute to the alleviation of undernutrition, overnutrition and associated health problems. Special emphasis is placed on vegetables, fruits, cereals, edible insects, small fish species, mushrooms, legumes, sesame, tuber and root crops. Some of the identified health benefits of these TAFs include lowering of serum cholesterol, anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular disease prevention and anti-hypertensive properties.

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Drying processes including solar, oven, and refractance window were studied to determine their influence on the drying behavior of jackfruit slices and properties of resultant jackfruit powders. The loss of sample mass, converted to the ratio between the water content at time t and the initial water content (moisture ratio), was used as the experimental parameter for modelling drying processes. Fifteen thin layer drying models were fitted to the experimental data using nonlinear regression analysis. Based on the highest R 2 and lowest SEE values, the models that best fit the observed data were Modified Henderson and Pabis, Verma et al., and Hii et al. for RWD, oven, and solar drying, respectively. The effective moisture diffusivity coefficients were 5.11 × 10 − 9 , 3.28 × 10 − 10 , and 2.55 × 10 − 10 for RWD, oven and, solar drying, respectively. The solubility of freeze-dried jackfruit powder (75.7%) was not significantly different from the refractance window dried powder (73.2%) and was higher than oven-dried jackfruit powder (66.1%). Oven-dried jackfruit powder had a lower rehydration ratio and porosity. Differences in rehydration ratio and porosity under different drying methods could be explained by the microstructure. Fractal dimension (FD) and lacunarity were applied to study the structure and irregularities of jackfruit dried with the different methods. FD was significantly ( P < 0.05 ) affected by the drying method. FD ranged from 1.809 to 1.837, while lacunarity ranged between 0.258 and 0.404.