Food

Not only can bamboo be used as more than just an alternative to wood. The shoots can be harvested during rainy season, cooked and eaten. The shoots are quite sweet, usually boiled or pickled they can be eaten as a salad, mixed with vegetables. Fast food restaurants internationally sometimes use bamboo as extender in their hamburger patties.

A well maintained clump is capable of producing double the number of shoots, when compared to an un-managed bamboo clump. For good shoot production it is important to keep the rhizomes covered with soil. Also more soil should be added to cover the new shoots as they start to come up through the earth. Keeping them buried, away from the sun, increases the nutrients they absorb and makes them sweeter to taste.

Thailand has developed a bamboo shoot export industry, as has China. Harvesting from plantations, the shoots are taken to a factory, sliced boiled, seasoned, and packaged. The species of bamboo that grow naturally in the Philippines are also suitable for eating. Most notably the Giant Bamboo, which has very sweet shoots, and grows well in the mountainous area of the Cordilleras. Though bamboo is commonly eaten in some provinces and not in others, there are several dishes that can be prepared using bamboo as a main ingredient or supplementary vegetable.