APEACHGIRL Premium Snow Swallow Gum (16oz/1LB) - Natural Plant-Based Dessert Ingredient, Resealable Bag | Vegan Cooking & Asian Dessert Essentials | Wild-Harvested from Myanmar

Looks like it should, no strong odors. When made into tea it does not fully dissolve but becomes soft and does infuse the water. Benefits remain to be seen. Just started trying this stuff.

Tragacanth gum is a natural product harvested from the Astragalus tragacanth tree in Myanmar.The product is handpicked to ensure quality and purity, and is known for its high nutritional value.The product is sold under the brand name APEACHGIRL and is sold in one pound space saving pouches.Each pouch has a shelf life of 365 days and does not contain any food additives.It should be stored in an airtight, cool and dry place, with refrigeration being the best option.Before cooking, it should be soaked in water for 10 hours or longer.The product is intended for use as a food ingredient and its claims have not been evaluated by the FDA.When mixed with other flavoring agents (a few of which are suggested on the product page), making tasty soup-like wholesome desserts result. We enjoyed a green-tea flavored version and blended it with ice for a refreshing cold beverage.The product page could be improved by listing additional use and preparation methods for this ingredient.Convenient resealable plastic pouch.Made in China from Myanmar-sourced raw materials.A premium value when offered at about $34 at the time of our review.Although the product page incorrectly lists the cost as "($0.81 / Count)," the unit price is about $2.13 per ounce in the 16 ounce pouch.

This is tragacanth gum, the dried sap collected by hand from a species of shrub . This gum invariably has pieces of the plant's bark which is often preferred to be removed after hydration. I was struck by how little bark had to be removed. This is one of the cleanest gums I've encountered.Humanity has written about it since 3 BC. It's an excellent thickener (e.g. for salad dressings and sauces) and emulsifier (has been used in ice cream). When mixed with water, it swells to many times it original size. For one serving, I suggest weighing out no more than 20 g of this. Place it in a container at least 1 pint / 560 ml with water for 10 hours or overnight. You'll find it has absorbed the water and become much bigger.Get another container to put it in. Grab a small amount and examine it for bark and remove the bark before transferring it. The gum at this point is stringy and in chunks. You want the stringy bits which has an interesting texture when eaten. It's generally placed in a liquid soup of some sort. As a dessert this can include milk, coconut milk, juice, or water.The gum has a mostly neutral but slightly naturally sour flavor so you generally want to balance the flavor with a sweetener. Traditionally you'd use fruits and rock sugar but you can use whatever you like. When using coconut milk I like using honey. It may be hard to get some of the traditional fruits but goji berries are popular in health food circles. But use whatever fruits you like.Pictured is the hydrated and cleaned tragacanth gum.It's $2.12/oz at the time of this review, which is pretty competitive with comparable products. Like I said, it's exceptionally clean so the time reduction in cleaning it and no use of sulfur in processing is worth it to me. At 20 g per serving it'll last a while.

I thought this looked interesting and wanted to try it since I like boba tea. I didn't have the ingredients to make traditional desserts with this, but it's a nice addition to refreshing drinks. It's nice and chewy, but more like small chunks with some long strands when it expands, and does not require cooking like tapioca pearls. I soaked some in fruit juices, like cranberry and pomegranate and then added lemon/lime soda and ginger ale, it was fantastic. I tried some in plain water to taste and it's basically flavorless, I suppose you could sweeten it as well. It expands quite a bit, I dropped about 5 chunks in a small juice glass and overnight it absorbed all the liquid and filled the glass, cool stuff. :) I'm not familiar with the health benefits but I guess it can be good for you. Some recipes call for dry roasting it but I haven't tried that, but I do plan to try it as a thickener in homemade salad dressings to avoid or reduce using oil as an emulsifier, and I also believe it would be good in soups. Great stuff, thanks.

I like nature made products. I had never used Tragacanth Gum, so I decided to check it out. I was disappointed first of all, because the package has no instructions on how to prepare it or its health benefits. I did some research, and this is what I found on WebMD, “Tragacanth is a shrub that grows in areas of the Middle East. The sap-like material (resin) of the bark is used to make medicine. Tragacanth contains chemicals that stimulate the bowel. People use tragacanth for diarrhea, constipation, and other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses.” Some other websites talked about benefits, but none of them were reliable sources in my opinion. For this reason, I would not recommend Tragacanth Gum.

I was excited to try this product, but there is no cooking instruction from the seller. I still can't figure out the best way to use it. I put it in the smoothie, but the taste was not great.Although not tasty, I could eat it for health purposes. But, the seller has not included the health benefits either in the product description.The package should include the recipe and health benefits for helping those who have never used it before.P.S. the packet was all faded and looked old. (See pic)