A fairy tale of green gold
One of the diverse agroclimatic regions in India is home to a thriving, varied, and commercially significant bamboo species. Which has a great impact on our healthy lifestyle by providing shelter, furniture, food, ornamental plants, and beautification of the landscape, among other things. Therefore, it is called “Green Gold,” and its 1500 uses give it special status as the world’s most economically important plant species. Bamboo is an evergreen perennial flowering plant of the subfamily Bambusoideae, which is a grass family of Poaceae. It has a wide distribution in warm, moist tropical to temperate climates and even extends from rain forests to cool mountainous regions. The bamboo flower is considered rare, and the rarest once-in-a-lifetime blossoms saw flowers take a long interval of 65 to 120 years. There are approximately more than 100 species used for culinary and various commercial food products.
What are the species of bamboo used in food?
There are some delicious taste bamboo species names used for culinary activities such as Phyllostachys dulcis, Phyllostachys edulis f. edulis, Phyllostachys elegans, Phyllostachys rubromarginata etc.,
What part of the bamboo is used to cook?
The ideal bamboo shoots for cooking across a variety of cuisines are young, tender bamboo shoots spurting at the start of the growing season. The texture of bamboo shoots is very similar to that of a water chestnut. It is considered a wild vegetable that is not cultivated and is free from pesticides or fertilizers, and it can be easily collected from tribal markets, local markets, or forest areas. The traditions and ethnic people of Northeast India’s hallmark cuisine are widely used in their food habits in the form of dried bamboo shoots, fermented bamboo shoots, pickled bamboo shoots, or even in the market’s various foodstuffs available, such as cane bamboo shoots, or chips. Fermented bamboo shoots are widely used to make one of the Manipuri signature cuisines, as well as locally recognized chutneys called “Eromba” and “Singzu”. In other parts of India, such as Gujarat, Orissa, and Karnataka, tribes also widely use bamboo shoots as food in their daily lives. Bamboo shoots are famous ingredients in various dishes prepared in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the world.
What are the health benefits of bamboo shoots?
Freshly collected bamboo shoots are a good source of thiamine, niacin, vitamin A, vitamin B6, tocopherols, and antioxidants. Bamboo shoots are good sources of dietary fibre with lower cholesterol content, which makes them widespread healthy nutrients for that zero-figure aspirant or healthy lifestyle. It has also a good amount of protein, amino acids, and carbohydrate minerals with low-fat content. It makes claim for an additional boost to young energetic and athletic strengths due to the presence of phytosterols in juvenile shoots.
What is the bamboo shoot food product available?
Fermented bamboo shoot is commonly known as Bas Tenga, Cane Bamboo, Bamboo shoot Dry shoot, Bamboo shoots fortified Biscuits, Namkeen, Noodles, etc.
What should take precautions before consuming bamboo shoots?
Since it is a natural law that nothing in nature can be 100% absolute, the bamboo shoot is not an exceptional example and has both advantages and disadvantages. However, before consuming bamboo shoots, one should ensure that they’re free from hydrogen cyanide. Because bamboo shoots contain varying amounts of cyanogen glycosides, which are primarily nontoxic and are called taxiphyllin. However, when bamboo shoots are disturbed during food processing, 𝛽-glycosidase is released, which reacts with taxiphyllin to produce the principal hazardous molecule known as “Hydrogen cyanide,” whose level should not be reached at a toxic level in a human’s body. However, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) considers a major health risk concentration to be a lethal dose of 0.5–3.5 mg/Kg body weight, which may cause serious health complications. Therefore, you need to properly proceed and be tested before consuming bamboo shoots and their products.
What Cultivator Phyto Lab can do for your products?
Cultivator Phyto Lab is one of the world’s leading certified AYUSH testing laboratories with experienced scientific elite scholars working for the development and quality control of raw food to the finished product as per compliance with national and international regulatory bodies. We performed one-stop testing facility for various parameters such as Physio-chemical Analysis; Nutrient labeling, Hydrogen cyanide, Moisture, Total Ash, Acid insoluble ash, Water soluble ash/insoluble ash, Foreign matter, Dietary fiber, Crude fiber, Total Sugar, Minerals, Contamination, adulterant testing, and Microbiological testing.
Authors: – (Dr. Sanjoy Gupta and Sandeep Sharma)
References: –
- https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2014/679073/
- https://bambubatu.com/growing-bamboo-for-food/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllostachys_aureosulcata