Healthy Bamboo Charcoal Bread

Bamboo charcoal bread seems to be a new phenomenon that has hit the culinary world.

Bamboo Charcoal Bread

Take a stroll through the major bakery chains at your local supermarket and you will spot these jet black breads on offer. There are people who find it to be a real turn off due to its color but they are definitely starting to get attention.

Well, black squid ink pasta didn't exactly take long to become a mainstream pasta, in spite of the pungent fishy smell.

For instance, Stacks burger in Penang uses these jet black bamboo charcoal buns for their burgers.

The benefits of bamboo charcoal are many and it is only natural that they be added to food as well. After all, we all take charcoal tablets during cases of food poisoning. Charcoal binds the toxins in our body and helps expel them from our system. Thus consuming more charcoal infused food will logically help us detox.

A piece of charcoal placed inside a refrigerator helps to eliminate odor. Place a piece of charcoal anywhere in your home and it will purify the air. And get this, it is a somewhat "intelligent" element in that, when it encounters humid air, the charcoal will absorb the moisture, thus leaving you with dry air and when it encounters dry air, the charcoal will release moisture instead.

A friend once said that guys wanting to impress their girlfriends should just buy them a piece of charcoal instead of splurging on a 5 carat diamond. This is because charcoal has the same properties as diamond - pure carbon.

I haven't heard from said friend since, so I'm not sure about that piece of advice. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

Bamboo charcoal is made bamboo plants that are at least 5 years or older which are burned inside an oven at over 120°C

In order to put them into food, use a spice grinder to grind them up into fine powder before adding them into your cake or bread batter.

And don't worry, other than the color, you will not find any hint of the bamboo charcoal affecting the smell or taste of your baking.

However, it seems that other than in Asian countries, bamboo charcoal products have not really penetrated the Western market. Browsing through a few food blogs from the West, it seems that it is not easy for them to find bamboo charcoal products, much less bamboo charcoal itself in their supermarkets.

We are lucky as the trend has caught on here and most bakeries and confection shops now offer bamboo charcoal products. Let's hope they get more creative so that we can have more varieties of products made with the healthy bamboo charcoal.