Bamboo Shoots and Global Nutrition: The Panda Diet

We may be about to have something very basic in common with pandas. We could be adding bamboo to our diets. Well, why not.

After all, bamboo shoots have been considered everything from a staple to a delicacy in Chinese, Japanese and Southeast Asian cuisines for more than 3000 years.

They have even been respected for their medicinal properties. References in literature from the Tang Dynasty – 601 AD-700 AD – praise their health benefits.

Records during the Ming Dynasty, the 276 year span, lasting from 1368 to 1644, show bamboo shoots were used for their “cooling” effects to treat fever, asthma and phlegm.

Pandas and their passion

A year before Covid, I went backpacking in China, heading south out of Beijing. Bullet trains shot through hours of dense jungle to emerge suddenly with no preamble into a new town of empty skyscrapers as tight together as a fistful of dried spaghetti.

In a strange experience for modern-day European train travelers, you knew you had arrived where you wanted to be by the accurate time on your watch.

In the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, the pandas did little but fall unwittingly off tree platforms and munch their way mindlessly through tons of bamboo stalks.

This is what pandas do for up to 16 hours a day. They gnaw at between 70 and 100 pounds of bamboo, which results in them responding to digestive calls of nature up to 50 times a day. (This is all good material for your next pub quiz.)

As a method of food consumption, it is not recommended for people – not so much because of the time and quantity factors – but for bamboo content. Raw bamboo shoots contain compounds harmful to humans, some of which can interfere with thyroid function.

If you wanted to use them, you would have to boil them for 4-8 minutes, then soak them in cold water for at least 10 hours, changing the water twice.

Lessons from Soviet mushrooms

This sounds to me not unlike the press release from TASS, the Russian news agency, which during my Moscow years declared a particular toxic wild mushroom fit for public consumption if certain actions were taken.

It would no longer be poisonous so long as it was first brought to the boil, the water then thrown away, brought again to the boil in further fresh water also to be discarded.

Next, those actions were to be repeated once more (if not twice to staunch any trepidations), before, finally, the mushrooms had to be fried.

By my calculations, to reach that conclusion at least four testers will have been poisoned and the mushrooms will have lost any trace of flavor.

Those nations which eat most of the annual global consumption of 2 million tons of bamboo shoots regularly – not just China and Southeast Asia but Japan, India, Nepal, Myanmar, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and more – either cook them, pickle them or ferment them first. Me, I buy them canned.

What Big Food has in mind

None of this, as you have probably guessed, is what Big Food Biz has planned for the future of bamboo shoots.

What it has discovered of the world’s fastest growing plant is not just that it’s nutrient rich but can control our blood sugar and lipid levels.

Looking at the size of Chengdu’s pandas this seems hard to swallow, though they have no trouble with that activity.

But ever in search of benefits from sources that are cheap and plentiful, food scientists have found that nutrient-rich bamboo is “probiotic” and good for “gut health” (I say, two of the latest food trends in one product!), with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as compounds that reduce harmful this-es and that-s.

The acrylamide angle

What they have in mind is to add this source of protein and fibre, potassium, niacin and various vitamins to processed foods.

The big find, however, is not that this stalk can provide us with benefits from managing diabetes to reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, but that it can reduce the formation of acrylamide. To you and me, that is the toxic chemical associated with fried or roasted food.

So call me cynical, but I draw from this that adding bamboo extracts to junk food will mean we can feel free to eat more of it with fewer harmful effects. Of course, I may be quite wrong.

At any rate, while I generally have a tin or two of bamboo shoots for when I feel like a stir fry, I would rather depend for my nutrients and positive compounds on fresh produce that comes from healthy soil. And have the odd treat of straight-forward junk food once in a while without guilt.

Plus: A recipe for Bamboo shoot curry

A can of bamboo shoots is a useful store cupboard staple. Add it to a stir fry or a curry and you can produce a meal with layers of flavor in a matter of minutes.

You can pretty much make it up as you go, with whatever vegetables you have in your fridge. Add chicken or pork or shrimp or fish if you wish. I wouldn’t call this a recipe but a basic guide.

Serves 2-4

• 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2-4 tablespoons Thai curry paste, red or green
• 1-2 cans (size up to your enthusiasm) sliced bamboo shoots, drained and rinsed
• 385g/13.5 oz can full-fat coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce or soy sauce
• 1-2 tablespoons palm or brown sugar
• Juice from 2 limes, about ¼ cup + 1 lime to add a quarter to each bowl
• Leaves from 3-4 stalks coriander/cilantro (optional)
• 4-5 kaffir lime leaves, fresh leaves from 3-4 stalks Thai basil, shreds of seeded red chilli, a quarter of a fresh lime (all optional). Sometimes, I add chopped toasted peanuts…

Vegetable suggestions, any or all: potatoes, peeled and cubed; carrots sliced in batons; small round Thai or pea or Japanese long aubergines/eggplants; white cabbage, thinly sliced.

To finish: ¼ large English or one small Persian cucumber, sliced in 2.5cm/1 inch batons and 2 spring onions/scallions sliced finely at an angle.

Meat or fish suggestions: Chicken thighs or breasts, cubed; pork tenderloin, chunked in small pieces; monkfish or cod loin, cut in chunks; shrimp, peeled.

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the curry paste and fry and scrape until its smell is released, 1-2 minutes.

If you’re using meat, add it to the pan (but not the fish) and stir-fry to sear and seal before adding the vegetables. Pour in the coconut milk and scrape the pan to loosen any caramel.

Add the next three ingredients and lower the heat. Simmer until everything is cooked through, up to 10 minutes, adding fish or shrimp if you’re using to cook for only 3-4 minutes.

Pour into a warmed serving dish, scatter over the coriander/cilantro, Thai basil, red chilli ribbons, sliced cucumber, and spring onions, and serve with jasmine or other rice. I also like to serve this over a tangle of rice noodles.