Charcoal additive offers grey crust, health benefits

Italiana FoodTech has a food-grade activated charcoal available that gives pizza crusts a grey colour and provides several health benefits.

Food-grade activated charcoal, also known as plant-based charcoal, is often used in hospitals to flush a patient’s system of a drug or alcohol overdose, Alice Rovere of Italiana Foodtech explains. Our body can take advantage of its properties through food.

Among other benefits, she adds, the charcoal absorbs intestinal gas to eliminate bloating, relieves the fullness and bloating many people feel after eating leavened products, helps with digestion and helps reduce cholesterol levels in blood.

Charcoal is a concentrate of vegetable fibres obtained from willow or birch wood, which are then decomposed by heat in the absence of oxygen. Once in the intestine, the fibres are not digested nor absorbed but instead travel through the intestine until they are removed along with the gas that was captured.

When added to pizza dough, the charcoal gives dough a black appearance and, once baked, results in a grey crust.

The charcoal flour is different from the black flour currently on the market, which is simply coloured flour without the same health benefits, Rovere says.

For more information, contact Italiana Foodtech at 647-557-3477 or visit www.pizzatools.ca.