Activated vegetable charcoal is a new ingredient which restaurants are adding to their dishes. It comes in powder form or capsules and has nothing to do with the charcoal we use to cook food.
Many French restaurants now add vegetable charcoal to their dishes. The Chez Charbon restaurant in Marseilles offers burgers and cocktails with added activated charcoal. Vanille noire does an ice cream flavoured with vegetable charcoal. The Japanese restaurant Goku Asian Canteen in Paris offers a giant burger with a bun made of this powder. The black bread at Utopie Boulangerie is also made with it. And you can buy your own vegetable charcoal in health-food shops to add to your sweet or savoury dishes. It is derived from the calcinations of wood.
Jérémy Béguier, head of marketing of an online vendor of natural products, explains where active vegetable charcoal comes from to the Figaro. It is derived from burning soft wood such as willow or the lime tree or even coconut shells at a temperature of between 600 and 900°C and with a total absence of oxygen. The resulting substance must be reheated with water and air in order to release the millions of asperities which give activated charcoal its health benefits. They draw the mass of bad bacteria and toxins, which are present in the gut to them. Eating charcoal enables toxic gases which are responsible for pain in the body to be eliminated. This ingredient purifies the body and keeps it healthy.
