In ancient times, especially during the famine, among the poor in Sweden, wood bark was actively used for food, in particular, as one of the ingredients for baking bread.
It was ground and mixed with ordinary rye or wheat flour. Basically, a pine bark was used, but also birch, linden, elm, and others. In some areas of the kingdom, this supplement was used not only in difficult periods, but also with good yields.
But if earlier based on the use of wood flour lay economic considerations, but now scientists have discovered in it a number of properties that are beneficial to the body. Now it can be bought in shops specializing in ecological and healthy products.
The food is not the entire bark, but only a thin layer that adjoins the woody part of the trunk and is called phloem. To the broader masses, it is known more as a bast or a bast. His taste is bitter enough. Collect it usually in the spring, when the tree is filled with juice and the bark is easily separated from the trunk. Then the bast is dried and roasted on fire until it begins to crumble so that it can be ground into flour.
The Saami used the bark for a long time as an energy source and vitamin C.
It was also used in porridge: first they boiled liquid rasper from rye, and then they filled it with bast flour.
The energy value, for example, of pine flour is 82 kcal per 100 grams.
Meanwhile, betulin, which is abundant in the birch bark, contributes to the prevention of obesity and high cholesterol levels in the blood.
It is used in some medicines, but now Swedish scientists have found that it has a great positive effect on the metabolic system. The results of experiments performed on mice proved to be very impressive.
The animals were put on a diet containing a lot of fat and sugar. At the same time, he was administered a number of drugs. One group of mice - betulin from the bark, the other - statins, the usual remedy for increased cholesterol. The third group was given nothing at all. When the results were compared later, it was found that mice receiving statins or betulin did not gain as much additional weight as mice sitting on fat and sweet. However, the reasons were different. Rodents who injected betulin, burned more calories, and those that took the statins, - absorbed less fat.
Further experiments have shown that betulin reduces the level of fats in the blood, liver and tissues in mice, and also increases the sensitivity to insulin, which, in turn, reduces the predisposition to diabetes. In some animals, there was a decrease in the risk of formation of deposits on the walls of blood vessels.
The results of the study are published in the journal "Cell Metabolism". Its authors believe that the substances contained in the birch bark have better qualities than the medicines currently available for high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
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