In this paper, a number of acute and subchronic toxicological tests were documented to evaluate the safety of a polyphenol-rich ethanol extract of bamboo shavings (EEBS). (i) Acute toxicity test: The oral maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of EEBS was above 20 g/kg body weight for mice, thus the amount can be seen as practically non-toxic. (ii) Mutagenicity test: No mutagenicity was detected according to the negative experimental results of Ames test, micronucleus test on bone marrow cell in mice andabnormality test on mice sperms. (iii) 30 days feeding study: There were no treatment-related toxic effects when EEBS were at levels of 2.50, 5.00, or 10.00 g/kg/day and no adverse effects of EEBS had been observed in these studies. The no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) of the extract was 10.00 g/kg/day during the 30 days. In addition, no significant distinctions were observed in hematology values, clinical chemistry values and organ/body weight ratio (P > 0.05). In conclusion, EEBS is safe and the results support the use of EEBS for various foods
