The Fruit That Started a Mutiny

If you wanted to feed your entire family, all you would need to grow is breadfruit.

One breadfruit tree can produce up to 200 fruits a year. Some studies put it even higher—269 fruits per tree annually, each weighing just over a kilogram.¹ And it keeps doing that for over 50 years. Some trees live 80 years or more.² All from one planting.

Breadfruit is full of starch. A single fruit has about 60 to 75 percent starch by dry weight, comparable to potatoes, corn, and rice.³ It has all the essential amino acids. Higher quality protein than wheat, soybean, or corn.⁴ It’s one of the best survival foods on the planet.

In the 1700s, the British noticed this.

Jamaica had experienced several famines between 1780 and 1786. Plantation owners needed cheap food for enslaved workers. They petitioned King George III to import breadfruit from Tahiti.⁵

So in 1787, the British sent a ship called the HMS Bounty. Captain William Bligh. Mission: collect breadfruit saplings from Tahiti and deliver them to the Caribbean.