Breadfruit trees can live for up to 100 years and produce more than 2,000 pounds of fruit each season. They grow well in groves and can easily be incorporated into agroforestry, which is the principle of applying intercropping techniques to reforestation programs. Due to this, breadfruit trees aid in food security, improves soil fertility, crop diversity, and more.

More importantly, the breadfuit itself can be made into a variety of foods. This episode of Climate Cuisine explores how it’s eaten in Puerto Rico and Hawai’i. Plus, a bit about its dark history in the slave trade. We’re talking about Mike McLaughlin from the Trees That Feed Foundation, Mike Opgenorth from the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawai’i, Juliane Braun, who wrote a paper about breadfruit’s role as an 18th-century superfood, and Von Diaz, a cookbook author and esteemed food writer.