What are bamboo's uses? A comprehensive guide in one article

Bamboo is a perennial plant of the grass family, subfamily Bambusoideae, known since ancient times as the "gentleman" of plants. It usually grows in patches through underground creeping rhizomes, and can also reproduce by flowering and setting seed; the seeds are called bamboo rice. The bamboo shoots of some species are edible, and bamboo is not only ornamental but also very widely used. Let's take a look together below at what uses bamboo has!

Bamboo's ornamental value

Bamboo is an excellent landscaping and tourist ornamental plant. The Chinese nation has a long history of cultivating, using and appreciating bamboo, and China is called by the West “the country of bamboo civilization”, while Yunnan has the reputation of “the hometown of the world's bamboos”. Because bamboo has high tourist aesthetic and landscape ornamental value, and because of Yunnan's rich bamboo resources and wonderful ethnic bamboo culture, bamboo culture tourism will hold a particularly important place in the development of Yunnan's tourism industry.

Bamboo's industrial value

Bamboo grows quickly. In recent years, for environmental reasons, a large amount of furniture and paper has switched to being made from bamboo, and it can also be used to make handicrafts, musical instruments and so on. Bamboo fiber, made from bamboo material through engineering methods and physical and chemical processes, is used as a textile to make towels, clothing and so on. Bamboo material is roasted to make bamboo charcoal, which is used in many situations, including removing environmental odors and in specially flavored foods. Activated carbon made from bamboo charcoal through crushing and activation has good adsorption and purification effects and is used in cars and homes, as well as in sewage treatment and so on. Bamboo is also often used to build trellises (sheds), as building material, and for daily items such as brooms, tables and chairs. Bamboo can also be woven into baskets, back baskets, vegetable baskets, mats and so on, which are commonly seen in rural areas. Bamboo is now widely used in close-fitting textile fields such as home textiles, socks and underwear.

Bamboo's medicinal value

1. Bamboo leaves: Bamboo leaves have a long history of food and medicinal use in China and are a natural plant approved by the state for both medicinal and food use. They have the effects of clearing heat and relieving restlessness, promoting body fluid production and diuresis, and are used to treat conditions such as fever with thirst, infantile convulsions, coughing and vomiting blood, red face, scanty dark urine, and mouth ulcers and tongue sores. Let's take a look together below at the effects and functions of bamboo leaves!

2. Bamboo sap: Bamboo sap is the bamboo juice collected from both ends after splitting bamboo culms open and heating them over fire. Compendium of Materia Medica records: “Bamboo sap is sweet in taste, strongly cold, and non-toxic. Indications: sudden stroke and wind arthralgia, great heat in the chest, stopping restlessness, wasting-thirst, and relapse due to overexertion.” Modern pharmaceutical chemical analysis has proven that bamboo sap contains more than ten kinds of amino acids, glucose, fructose, sucrose, as well as various chemical components such as guaiacol, cresol, formic acid, acetic acid and benzoic acid, and pharmacological tests have confirmed that it indeed has antitussive and expectorant effects.

3. Bamboo fruit: After bamboo flowers, it sets fruit like wheat, with a greenish pericarp, containing bamboo rice, and sweet in taste. Guangzhi records: “The fruit can be taken as food.” Compendium of Materia Medica: “Bamboo fruit communicates with the spirits, lightens the body and boosts qi.” Supplement to the Compendium of Materia Medica: “It expels accumulations as if by magic.” Modern research has proven that the nutritional composition of bamboo fruit is similar to that of rice, wheat and corn; in addition to being rich in starch, protein and fat, it also contains 18 kinds of amino acids, making it a developable medicinal food resource.

4. Bamboo shavings: This is the material scraped from the second layer after the green cortex of bamboo culms has been scraped off, also called “bamboo second green”. Compendium of Materia Medica: “Light bamboo shavings are sweet in taste, slightly cold, and non-toxic. They mainly treat vomiting, warm qi and cold-heat, vomiting blood, metrorrhagia, stop lung atrophy, treat five types of hemorrhoids, and fetal movement in women; bitter bamboo shavings mainly treat heat congestion and blood in urine.”

5. Bamboo fungi: Bamboo fungi refer to fungi growing in bamboo forests, such as bamboo fungus (Dictyophora indusiata). Their medicinal food effects are recorded in medical works such as Dietary Materia Medica, Supplement to the Materia Medica, and Compendium of Materia Medica. Bamboo fungus has a long history as an edible fungus; in the past it could only be collected from the wild, and the quantity was extremely limited, usually only used as tribute to emperors. Now it has been artificially cultivated, and its yield and quality have both improved significantly.

6. Bamboo roots: Bamboo roots used as medicine have the effect of clearing heat and relieving restlessness. Compendium of Materia Medica: “Light bamboo roots are decocted and taken as juice, to relieve restless heat and quench thirst caused by taking mineral elixirs. Bitter bamboo roots mainly treat toxic heat qi of the heart, lungs and five viscera. Sweet bamboo roots calm the fetus and stop postpartum restless heat.”

7. Bamboo shoots: Bamboo shoots are the young shoots of bamboo. They are not only fine and tender in texture, crisp and refreshing, and delicious in flavor, but also rich in nutrients. As a medicinal food resource, they have a long history in China and are recorded in classical works such as Compendium of Materia Medica, Materia Medica Classic, Dietary Materia Medica, Food Classic, Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People, and Tang Materia Medica. For example, Compendium of Materia Medica says bamboo shoots are sweet in taste, non-toxic, mainly treat wasting-thirst, promote water metabolism and boost qi, and can be eaten for a long time.