While growing up in central Uganda, Justine Nakintu regularly ate jackfruit, the largest edible fruit on the planet, which grew in abundance year-round on trees surrounding her home. Beneath its bumpy green rind is a stringy flesh that yellows and sweetens to a tropical taste as it ripens. Unripe, it has a mild flavor and is used as a meat substitute in tacos and a variety of savory dishes. But because this nutrient-rich fruit spoils within five days of being harvested, Nakintu has spent her one-year research fellowship working with NMU students on two goals: creating jackfruit products with extended shelf lives to reduce waste and help Ugandan farmers; and mapping the best locations for cultivating the commodity based on suitable climate and soil conditions.
Her fellowship is funded by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) at NMU and ends this month. Over the course of her time on campus, Nakintu worked with 13 NMU students: 11 from Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences; one from Biology; and one from Chemistry. Together, they have used jackfruit to make red and white wine, yellow and red jelly, seed milk, and hardtack biscuits. Using the state-of-the-art laboratory facilities in the NMU Chemistry Department, they have quantified the nutrient and nutraceutical compounds in the products.
Nakintu's research stay at NMU has been beneficial to the students who participated, including Sabrina Mata, a medicinal plant chemistry major from Lake Wales, Fla.
“I have worked with Justine on the gas chromatography unit with a flame ionization detection (FID) to determine the alcohol content and some other undesirable compounds in the wine," Mata said. "It's been really nice to gain experience using FID because it opens up more career possibilities after I graduate. I typically use mass spectrometry, but that is more expensive and requires helium, a very finite resource. But FID is a cheaper mode of detection, so it could be more widely used by more people, which is why I think it's really relevant to Justine's research. Basically, we are trying to make it as efficient as possible, so that it's minimal instrument time for anyone wanting to check their alcohol content very precisely.”
During the course of the research, Nakintu has worked closely with NMU professors including Alden MacDonald, Philip Yanguoru, Brandon Canfield, Robert Legg, Susy Ziegler, Adam Naito and the "always-present" Hannah Hawkins. She said they have been instrumental in ensuring the success of the project.