The flesh and seed have good nutritional properties and the results support the use of the Green Plum for diet diversification and nutrition in Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in Australia.
The native Australian green plum (Buchanania obovata) is a small fruit that grows in the northern parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The fruit belongs to the family Anacardiaceae, which includes the other agriculturally important fruit mangoes, pistachios and cashew nuts. The green plum is a favored species of fruit for the Aboriginal communities and an important bush food in the Northern Territory. To date, only minimal scientific studies have been performed on the green plum as a food. This review is about plant foods in the family Anacardiaceae and the key nutritional compounds that occur in these fruit and nuts. It looks at the more traditional nutrient profiles, some key health metabolites, allergens and anti-nutrients that occur, and the role these foods play in the health of populations. This provides a guide for future studies of the green plum to show what nutritional and anti-nutritional properties and compounds should be analyzed and if there are areas where future studies should focus. This review includes an update on studies and analysis of the green plum and how its nutritional properties give it potential as a food for diet diversification in Australia.
This study reports changes in the concentrations of important health-related bioactive compounds (vitamin C and ellagic acid) and morphology of wild harvested Kakadu plum fruits that were collected during three harvest seasons and four maturities. The results showed that fruit weight increased, whereas fruit length and width changed slightly with the advance in maturity. Vitamin C increased up to 20 folds (from 1.2 to 21.2% dry weight [DW]) from immature to mature stage, whereas ellagic acid decreased approximately three times (from 6.5 to 2.1% DW). Similar trends were observed over the three harvest seasons studied. A positive correlation between fruit weight and vitamin C, whereas a negative correlation with ellagic acid was observed, indicating that maturity plays an important role in contributing to the variation of ellagic acid and vitamin C. Season also had an effect and showed the influences of rainfall, temperature and solar exposure on the biosynthesis of vitamin C and ellagic acid.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.