Bamboo leaves as food....

[aart]

pharmaceutical aids like flowing agents

???

 

[ErnieBerley]

But.... now wondering... don’t pandas have to eat all the time and so much because bamboo is poor in nutrition? I sorta remember that but absolutely could have that wrong.

I dunno but

???

they;re called excipients - defined as "An excipient is a substance formulated alongside the active ingredient of a medication, included for the purpose of long-term stabilization, bulking up solid formulations that contain potent active ingredients in small amounts, or to confer a therapeutic enhancement on the active ingredient in the final dosage form, such as facilitating drug absorption, reducing viscosity, or enhancing solubility" . so ground bamboo leaves can be used in this capacity also. A flowing agent is something used in tableting or encapsulating it helps the drug or supplement move thru the machinery properly without caking up and such

 

[aart]

they;re called excipients - defined as "An excipient is a substance formulated alongside the active ingredient of a medication, included for the purpose of long-term stabilization, bulking up solid formulations that contain potent active ingredients in small amounts, or to confer a therapeutic enhancement on the active ingredient in the final dosage form, such as facilitating drug absorption, reducing viscosity, or enhancing solubility" . so ground bamboo leaves can be used in this capacity also. A flowing agent is something used in tableting or encapsulating it helps the drug or supplement move thru the machinery properly without caking up and such

So filler and anti-caking agent.

This makes me think of some acquaintances who were all up in arms about 'cellulose' in grated Parmesan cheese...they thought it was wood, when actually cellulose can be any form of plant matter.

 

[Kabootar]

But.... now wondering... don’t pandas have to eat all the time and so much because bamboo is poor in nutrition? I sorta remember that but absolutely could have that wrong.

Pandas are bear from the order carnivora there digestive tract is evolved to digest meat, but they have switched to eating bamboo and their digestive tract have a difficult time breaking down the cellulose which is essential to get to the nutritious portion of the bamboo which is a tropical grass with thick cell walls. However it should be noted that a carnivor is able to survive on a diet consisting only bamboo.

Chickens were domesticated from the Red and Green jungle fowls which are native to South and Southeast Asia and prefer living in Bamboo forests.

Most bamboo species produce very nutritious seeds every 60-130 years during that time the floor of the bamboo forest is covered ankle deep in seeds. The chicken has evolved to take advantage of this unique characteristic of the bamboo plant by laying a lot of eggs whenever this phenomenal event took place. This way their population explodes at a regular interval and people of India and South East noted that this bird will lay egg regularly if it's food security is ensured. So thats how the chicken got domesticated.

 

[Kabootar]

Ernie, I've been researching edible bamboo varieties. I noticed some vendors sell bamboo seeds. Then I read the reviews, and people complain that bamboo seeds don't germinate easily, and bamboo plants actually rarely produce seeds. My question is this - do you notice your jungle of bamboo ever producing seeds?

Very few people live long enough to see bamboo producing seeds. My

Ernie, I've been researching edible bamboo varieties. I noticed some vendors sell bamboo seeds. Then I read the reviews, and people complain that bamboo seeds don't germinate easily, and bamboo plants actually rarely produce seeds. My question is this - do you notice your jungle of bamboo ever producing seeds?

Very few people live long enough to see bamboo plants produce seeds. Bamboo forests of central Bihar produced flowers around every hundred years. They last produced flowers around a decade ago and it was the first time my great-grandmother saw bamboo seeds. All bamboos in a forest die after producing seeds. It is considered a bad omen and a harbinger of famine, wildfires and plague because the bamboo seeds cause the rat population to explode and after the bamboo seeds are gone they invade villages and farms and then they consume the crops and grains. After all food is gone they start dying because of starvation and fleas and then the bubonic plague follows. The dead bamboo forests easily catch fire bringing more destruction. That's why plague outbreaks were a recurring theme in India up until very late twentieth century. Last major outbreak was the plague of Surat (1994) when the bamboo forests of Gujarat flowered.

 

[Kabootar]

That's interesting....any other plants have silica?
Have read the hardwood ash is best for dust bathing....
...at least in one flock determinately preferred hardwood ash over softwood ash.

All tropical grass have significantly more silica in their cell walls. Probably because of the large number of herbivores in the tropics.

 

[Rooapalooza]

It's pretty easy to get rid of as long as you devote the time to knock over the shoots when they come up. Once it gets down to being a foot or so tall you can spray it with roundup.

Roundup is extremely toxic. It is proven to cause non-Hogkins lymphoma (cancer) in humans and wreaks havoc on all nearby ecological systems. The active ingredient, glyphosate, has a long half-life. You don't want your chickens eating plants, bugs, or water exposed to it. Please don't use toxic pesticides or weed killers near people, animals, or honestly anywhere that they can leach into the local environment.

 

[aart]

All tropical grass have significantly more silica in their cell walls. Probably because of the large number of herbivores in the tropics.

Why would herbivores make for more silica in the cell walls of grasses?

 

[Kabootar]

Why would herbivores make for more silica in the cell walls of grasses?

Because herbivores prefer soft tender grasses with less silica. Silica makes the cell wall tough. Btw that was only my hypothesis.

 

[Kabootar]

Roundup is extremely toxic. It is proven to cause non-Hogkins lymphoma (cancer) in humans and wreaks havoc on all nearby ecological systems. The active ingredient, glyphosate, has a long half-life. You don't want your chickens eating plants, bugs, or water exposed to it. Please don't use toxic pesticides or weed killers near people, animals, or honestly anywhere that they can leach into the local environment.

That's so true. When the bamboo forest flowered government sprayed the whole area with DDT to kill rats and flea and sprayed benzene hexachloride on our body as a "preventive" measure. It made many people very sick.