Edible Bamboo Shoots and Species
Of the 1575 known bamboo species worldwide, 109 species are recorded to have edible shoots. Edible meaning a satisfactory to delicious taste, because even though some bamboo shoots are classified as edible, they must be carefully prepared and boiled before consuming!
Bamboo shoots may contain significant, potentially very toxic, amounts of cyanogenic glycosides. Various reports even place bamboo shoots amongst the most potentially toxic plant materials, exceeding apricot, bitter almond stones and considerably exceeding that of cassava.
However, the cyanogenic glycoside in bamboo is in fact taxiphyllin. Taxiphyllin is unusual amongst other similar compounds in the sense that it degrades readily in boiling water. Thus boiling bamboo shoots or cooking bamboo shoots should remove any problem.
Below you'll find a Complete List of all the known Edible Bamboo Shoots and Species:
Species Name |
Quality |
|---|---|
| Acidosasa edulis | Delicious |
| Acidosasa Iingchuanensis | Edible |
| Bambusa balcooa | Good |
| Bambusa bambos | Edible |
| Bambusa beecheyana | Good |
| Bambusa blumeana | Good |
| Bambusa gibboides | Good |
| Bambusa tulda | Good |
| Bambusa tuldoides | Good |
| Bambusa vulgaris | Edible |
| Chimonobambusa communis | Good |
| Chimonobambusa macrophylla | Delicious |
| Chimonobambusa marmorea | Delicious |
| Chimonobambusa pachystachys | Delicious |
| Chimonobambusa puberula | Delicious |
| Chimonobambusa quadrangularis | Delicious |
| Chimonobambusa rigidula | Delicious |
| Chimonobambusa szechuanensis | Delicious |
| Chimonobambusa tumidissinoda | Delicious |
| Chimonobambusa utilis | Good |
| Chimonocalamus delicatus | Delicious |
| Dendrocalamus asper | Good |
| Dendrocalamus brandisii | Good |
| Dendrocalamus giganteus | Good |
| Dendrocalamus latiflorus | Good |
| Dendrocalamus latiflorus 'Mei-Nung' | Good |
| Dendrocalamus membranaceus | Edible |
| Dendrocalamus strictus | Edible |
| Fargesia robusta | Edible |
| Gigantochloa atter | Good |
| Gigantochloa levis | Delicious |
| Gigantochloa ligulata | Good |
| Gigantochloa nigrociliata | Good |
| Gigantochloa pruriens | Good |
| Gigantochloa robusta | Good |
| Gigantochloa thoii | Good |
| Guadua sarcocarpa | Good |
| Himalayacalamus falconeri | Good |
| Nastus elatus | Edible |
| Oxytenanthera abyssinica | Edible |
| Phyllostachys acuta | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys angusta | Edible |
| Phyllostachys arcana | Edible |
| Phyllostachys atrovaginata | Edible |
| Phyllostachys arcana | Edible |
| Phyllostachys atrovaginata | Edible |
| Phyllostachys bambusoides | Bitter |
| Phyllostachys bambusoides f. shouzhu | Edible |
| Phyllostachys bissetii | Edible |
| Phyllostachys circumpilis | Edible |
| Phyilostachys concava | Edible |
| Phyllostachys decora | Edible |
| Phyllostachys dulcis | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys edulis | Good |
| Phyllostachys edulis f. edulis | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys elegans | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys erecta | Edible |
| Phyllostachys fimbriata | Edible |
| Phyllostachys fimbriligula | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys flexuosa | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys glabrata | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys glauca | Good |
| Phyllostachys glauca f. yunzhu | Edible |
| Phyllostachys glauca var. variabilis | Edible |
| Phyllostachys heteroclada | Edible |
| Phyilostachys incarnata | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys iridescens | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys makinoi | Edible |
| Phyllostachys meyeri | Edible |
| Phyllostachys mirabilis | Edible |
| Phyllostachys nidularia | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys nidularia f. farcta | Edible |
| Phyllostachys nidularia f. mirabilis | Edible |
| Phyllostachys nidularia f. speciosa | Edible |
| Phyllostachys nidularia f. sulfurea | Edible |
| Phyllostachys nigella | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys nigra f. henonis | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys nuda | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys nuda 'Ink-finger' | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys parvffolia | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys pingyangensis | Edible |
| Phyllostachys platyglossa | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys praecox | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys praecox f. notata | Edible |
| Phyllostachys praecox f. viridisulcata | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys prominens | Good |
| Phyllostachys propinqua | Good |
| Phyllostachys propinqua f. lanuginosa | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys purpurata 'Solidstem' | Edible |
| Phyllostachys rivalis | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys robustiramea | Edible |
| Phyllostachys rubella | Edible |
| Phyllostachys rubromarginata | Edible |
| Phyllostachys rutila | Edible |
| Phyllostachys sapida | Edible |
| Phyilostachys sulphurea f. viridis | Good |
| Phyllostachys sulphurea f. laqueata | Good |
| Phyllostachys tianmuensis | Edible |
| Phyllostachys viridiglaucescens | Edible |
| Phyllostachys vivax | Delicious |
| Phyllostachys vivax 'Huangwenzhu' | Edible |
| Phyllostachys vivax f. aureocaulis | Edible |
| Phyllostachys yunhoensis | Delicious |
| Pleioblastus hindsii | Edible |
| Sasa kurilensis | Good |
| Sasaella masamuneana | Edible |
| Thamnocalamus aristatus | Edible |
| Thyrsostachys siamensis | Good |
| Yushania maling | Good |
Impact of Food-based Cyanide on Humans
Cyanide can and does cause significant health problems at sub-lethal levels. Some of the cassava-eaters in Africa have suffered harmful effects to the nervous system, including weakness of the fingers and toes, difficulty walking, dimness of vision, and deafness.
Some children who ate large quantities of apricot stones, which naturally contain cyanide as part of complex sugars, had rapid breathing, low blood pressure, headaches, and coma, and some died.
How to Detect Cyanide in Bamboo Shoots?
There are simple test kits to determine the presence of cyanide in bamboo shoots that can be used by an unskilled person for looking at cyanide levels in bamboo shoots, cassava roots and products, as well as other cyanogenic plant parts such as sorghum leaves, and flax seed meal.
The general principle is that a small sample of the plant or product is placed in a container with filter paper containing the required catalyst and a piece of picrate paper that reveals the amount of poison produced. The bottle is left overnight at room temperature. Next morning, when the breakdown to poisonous gas is completed, the color of the picrate paper indicates the level of toxicity.
How to Remove Cyanide in Bamboo Shoots?
The cyanogen in bamboo is taxiphyllin and therefore one of the few cyanogenic compounds that decomposes quickly when placed in boiling water. Bamboo becomes edible because of this instability.
This video shows How to Cook Bamboo Shoots
Boiling bamboo shoots for 20 minutes at 98°C removes nearly 70% of the HCN while all improvements on that (higher temperatures and longer intervals) removed progressively up to 96%. Thus even the highest quoted figures of cyanide found in bamboo shoots would be detoxified by cooking for two hours.
Source: INBAR
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I was introduced to the world of bamboo in 2006. Since then I dedicated all my time to experiment, research and write my findings online.
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