Right now you're probably wondering what Takesumi Supreme is. Well, I may or may not have mentioned it before but my dad is a chiropractor and applied kinesiologist, and a rather famous one in his field. He and and a friend of his developed a bunch of techniques that they teach to other doctors in yearly seminars and he's got a monthly newsletter that goes out to doctors all over the world (over 1000 I think). So anyway, one of his more recent projects is Supreme Nutrition Products. He teamed up with another friend of his to create a series of all natural plant based supplements for a variety of things. (FYI: the link above is for the new consumer site. The physician's site (which I created, along with all the product labels) has a lot more info but it's more technical and the ordering info on it is for doctors only). He's got 6 products out now, all of which have had very good results. And, since they're plant based and don't have any fillers, chemicals, or other junk, there's few (if any) side effects and they're about as healthy as you can get. I've taken most of them at some point or another (and some pretty regularly) and they work really well.
But anyway, by now I'm sure you want to know why I'm talking about all this. Well, if you haven't guessed, Takesumi Supreme (once again, that's the consumer site, here's the physicians's version) is his newest product. And this one is special because I was the one who gave him the idea. When I was in Japan, he asked me to keep an eye out for anything that might make a good product. One of the first things I thought of actually came from a favorite anime of mine, Yakitate Japan! (an amazingly awesome show about baking bread). There's one episode (can't remember the exact one but it's after the Newcomers' Tournament and before the Monaco Cup) where they use takesumi to create a super healthy black bread to combat the trio of bakers hired by the evil Yukino. And, since Yakitate's breads are always realistic (though insanely creative), I had my dad look into it.
Takesumi is a specially made bamboo charcoal. If you've ever heard of activated charcoal (you can get a bottle of tablets in any vitamine store), takesumi is something like that only way better. You can put it in water to remove chemicals and impurities (in Japan they sell chunks people put in water used to make tea or rice). It's also supposed to be great for the skin (it shows up in a lot of Japanese skin care products), absorbs EMFs (electromagnetic fields emitted by pretty much anything electronic) and oders, and does a whole bunch of other things. And, while it's not often used in food (though you can find bread and soba with it if you search), it's actually really easy to toss in a dough (I've successfully added it to bread and muffins so far) and it's really healthy to eat (or mix in water and drink). Plus, it doesn't really have a taste so you don't have worry about it making things taste weird (it will turn them black if you use enough though). If you want a more detailed list of what it can do check the web sites I linked to above.
So, to recap, takesumi is a specially made bamboo charcoal from Japan. It's extremely good for you, doesn't taste bad, and can easily be mixed into many different foods or drinks. And Supreme Nutrition Products is the only company in the US (and probably anywhere outside of Asia for that matter) that sells it (in consumable powder form anyway, there might be someone selling big chunks of it or something). And the best part? Since the product was my idea, I get a small cut from every bottle sold. So why not buy a bottle or two (or three, or four, or...) and give it a try? Tell your friends, tell your parents, tell random people on the street! And hey, even if I wasn't getting a cut, I'd still recommend it both for the health reasons and cause I can recreate the Black Ja-pan bread from Yakitate Japan! with it, which is just plain awesome.