Green gold (Bamboo) fermentation: A traditional approach to combat modern diseases

Abstract

North East India share unparalleled and unique diversity of fermented foods among the different tribes. These diversified tribes and communities are highly knowledgeable in the traditional practices and their associated health benefits. One of such major traditional practice is the process of fermentation of bamboo shoots. ‘Bamboo’ already has an enormous amount of health benefits and the correlation of it with the process of fermentation increases it tenfold. Fermentation creates an environment for essential microorganisms (also termed as probiotics) to flourish resulting in the production of products that can be a cure to many diseases. Although bamboo shoots possess high significance being a regular food ingredient, there are very little efforts made in exploration of probiotic microorganisms from fermented bamboo shoots of NE India. The associated probiotic potentiality of the fermented bamboo shoots can lead us to the door of many unexplored cure of human diseases. The present paper sums up the different ethnic bamboo dishes with the harboring probiotics in connection and the studies that have already been conducted in the spectrum of probiotics for treating various diseases. There is utmost need to inspect the beneficial effects of the microbes to implant new trials and experiments for mankind.