why do chinese people eat snakes, ants, and worms for medicine_the world of chinese

12.12.13 Why Do Chinese People Eat Snakes, Ants, and Worms for Medicine?The World of Chinese | The World of Chinese

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WHY DO CHINESE PEOPLE EAT SNAKES, ANTS, AND WORMS FORMEDICINE?

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Wednesday, June 30, 2010 | BY: ANDY DEEMER ()

In any traditional Chinese pharmacy, one of the first things to strike a foreigner is alwaysthe ingredients Frankly, theyre a little strange: dried sea horses, geckos, snakes,worms, a stuffed deer and one lone owl gazing down from above.

Meanwhile, theyre hovered over by serious pharmacists in lab coats, consulting giantmedical tomes. It all seems rather incongruous. But this is not Macbeth. This is as mucha part of Chinas history as anything else.

Take, for example, snakes. Theyre used for wind expulsion and channel clearancewhich means theyll do wonders for sagging energy levels and weak immunity.

Back in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), an unnamed villager suffered from a terrible skindisease. Boils and lesions covered his entire body. After drinking from a vat of wine over aperiod of time, his skin unexpectedly started to clear up. Everyone was shockedno onecould quite work out what had cured his ailments. That is, until a large, rotten snake wasdiscovered lying at the bottom of the barrel. The snake, it was hypothesized, could cureskin diseases!

Li Shizhen lived from 1518to 1593, and was one ofChinas most famousdoctors. He researchedsnakes for his massive52-volume medicaltextbook, Compendiumof Materia Medica ( B0n C2o G`ngM&), and found thatsnakes could be used totreat stubborn dry scale-

like skin diseases, skin eruptions and rashes.

Today youll still find snakes, prized for their medicinal qualities, preserved in liquorbarrels. Snake-infused liquor is sold by the glass or the bottle.

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At Lao Zhuan Cun, a restaurant in Qingdao, for example, Manager Sui bottles his ownliquor, adding a long-nosed pit viper, gutted, to a liter of rice wine. He throws in someginseng and wolfberries and lets it all sit for a month before selling it at 18 RMB a liang(,50g).

Many people like it, says Sui, especially men.

Farmer Zhang Changmeng is one of those men. As a child, he suffered from rheumaticarthritisuntil he took to drinking snake liquor. Two years later, he was healed and wasso impressed he took to TCM studies; then he became a farmer. His crop? Snakes.

Farmer Zhangs Red Plum Snake Farm, inSishui County,ShandongProvince, now sells 60tons of snakes a year at 400 RMB a kilo.

Snake powder not only helps with arthritis, Farmer Zhang insists, but also eliminatestoxins, clears your skin, and keeps you young.

To make the powder, first gut and skin the snake, then bake it at a low, steady heat. (Youmay have to experiment, as the precise time and temperature are closely-guarded tradesecrets.) Finally, grind it in a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder. But be warned, its apungent treatment.

An easier way to take snake is to have it ground and packaged as a pill. Theres Vitiligo, foracne and other persistent skin problems, and Pure Zaocys, for lower back and leg pain.

For more specific problems, though, you shouldnt miss the specifics of the snake.

The gallbladder of a Chinese rat snake, for example, is the size of a large soybean and isreported to be great for poor vision. It is terrific for eyesight, said Farmer Zhang. Hesells fresh ones for about 5 RMB each. You can slice them into small thin pieces, or grindthem up.

A snakes male anatomy, meanwhile, is small, spiky, and apparently genius at warmingthe kidney and enriching the qi. But, priced at up to 20,000 RMB a kilo, its not cheap.

Ants, meanwhile, are a bargainat just 200 RMB a kilo.

Emperor Qianlong ateblack ants and wasapparently the happiestemperor in the history ofChina. He died in 1799 atthe ripe old age of 89, andclaimed his good looksand youthfulness to beentirely due to his diet.

He was inspired by Li Shizhens Compendium of Materia Medica, which was then 200years old, and still the most popular medical book in China. (It remained that way until1959.) In it, Li wrote that black ants enrich the qi, beautify skin, delay ageing and restorekidney energy.

The emperors preferred recipe, ants fried with pine nuts, remains an all-time classic. Itsthe best way to ingest the insects, and can today be found in restaurants across China.Deep fry50gof black ants in vegetable oil until they become crisp, then do the samewith300gof pine nuts. Now toss them in a pan with20gof vegetable oil and stir it alltogether. Add some salt and sugar, and dig in!

If you want to buy ants, know in advance that the bigger they are, the more expensivetheyll be. Organic, wild ants are also going to cost more than farmed ones. But the mostexpensive is the mountain-dwelling Wild Black Ant (300 RMB a kilo).

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To catch this monster, professional hunters spread ground-up bones on plastic sheets,and sprinkle them with vinegar. After half an hour, huge ants will start to appearthe antassassins will snatch them up and drown them in a bucket thats half-filled with water.After a few days in the sun, theyre ready to be eaten.

Li Yanjun has farmed and sold ants for a decade, and talks like an entomologistbusinessman. Ants are nutritional, medical and healthy, he says. Theyre also one of themost valuable insects in China. The ant business has exploded in recent years. Peoplerealize that its a good medicine. Looks disgusting, but it tastes nice if you cook it in theright way.

Which is, presumably, deep fried with pine nuts.

You can also soak ants in liquor, like a snake. After a week, the ant-guotou cocktail will beready, but the longer you wait, the better. Drink 40ml a day for arthritis, or perhaps as anaphrodisiac.

A pre-bottled version of this recipe, Yilishen Tonic Wine, was a huge seller across China afew years ago. It advertised itself as a booster for mens sex drive and fertility, with adiscrete tag line of Those who use, are those who know! (She yng shezhdo!) But the company has since disappeared.

I didnt see any effects, said Mr. Yan, an older man who drank his own homemade antcocktail. Plus, it was disgusting.

Granny Chen, meanwhile, eats ants for the same reason that Emperor Qianlong did:youthfulness. Your hair will go from grey to black, she says, citing a friend who ate antpowder for three years.

Unlike the emperor, though, Chen uses a microwave to heat her dried ants, and thenblends them in a food processor. Two spoons a day, and shes still waiting for her hair toturn blackbut she has high hopes. The only problem? It tastes horrible and smells likeurine. Its disgusting, really.

Far more pleasant than the thought of eating ants is the thought of a deer. Its one of themost common sights in a TCM pharmacy, and represents longevity, happiness, luck andbenevolence.

And in the medicinal world, every single part of that deer is considered valuable.

The antlers are often for sale, presented in an elaborate gift box almost like moon cakes.Theyre not eaten whole, but ground up and mixed with warm water, until it becomesgluey. Deer Antler Glue (, L&ji2o Ji`o, 70 RMB /250g), reputed to tone the kidney,remove obstructions in meridians, help produce breast milk, andlike many of theseremedies, it seemsboost the libido. It balances the pairing of yin and yang, and evenhelps women with menstrual troubles.

One of the few authorized producers of Deer Antler Glue inChinais an ancient Beijingpharmacy called Tongrentang. It opened for business eight years after the start of the QingDynasty, in 1669, and has been operating at the same location in Beijing since 1702.

Like the Compendium of Materia Medica, its a TCM institution and its cabinets are filledwith a world of strange TCMsea cucumbers, sea horses, and snakesbut one thing wedidnt find there was deer embryo.

Its an ancient remedy for women who have trouble getting pregnant, and according toChen Shiduos The New Materia Medica ( B0n C2o X~n Bi`n), published in1691, it will invigorate the function of the spleen, reinforce kidney yang, tonify qi, andproduce vital essence.

Its also extremely hard to find.

All the embryos have already sold out this year, Dr. Bai Xiaofeng told us. Hed spent



months trying to find one for his daughter. It took many failed attempts, and somepersonal connections, to finally get his hands on one.

I asked my daughter to take three spoonfuls of the ground-up powder a day, he told us.She didnt like itit smells so bad. But she was pregnant by the third week. I asked mywife to finish the rest. You see, deer embryo is expensive, and not a speck should bewasted.

The owner of the Zhaofeng Deer Farm refused to give her name, but enthusiasticallyagreed with Dr. Bai. Deer embryo is especially good for women, she said. Men can takeit as well, as a tonic.

But her favorite suggestion for a mens tonic is actually made from the loin of a male deer.

Private parts appear frequently in TCM. The basic concept behind it all is that you canimprove any organ in your body by eating that same organ of an animal. You are what youeat, orliterally in Chineseeat something, nourish something. ( Ch~sh9nme b^ sh9nme.)

Today, deer parts are priced for the gentry (400 RMB for a100gmember) and arerecommended mostly for the older set. Young men should leave it to their elders, saidXie Chongyuan, a professor atGuangxiTCMUniversity. They should focus on a healthylifestyle, not on drinking tonics.

But if you do want to prepare that tonic, slice the meat thinly, and soak the strips in a literof strong alcohol for about two weeks. Twenty milliliters of liquor a day should be enoughto help the adrenals, boost testosterone, and improve function.

In ancient times, this tonic was legendarily popular with the emperors. But when youremember the number of wives and concubines they often had, thats not so entirelysurprising.

Another legendarily royal remedy is the earthworm.

In China, though, its not actually known as a worm, but by a far more royal name: EarthDragon (d#l5ng).

It all started with Emperor Taizu of the Song Dynasty. He ruled from 960 to 976, andapparently had a terrible case of shingles. His royal doctors were all baffled by thispersistent and painful skin rash. No one could find a cure.

Finally, a folk doctor was brought in, andwhere all else had failedhe simply pulled twoearthworms from the ground. He moistened them with honey and sugar, and left them ona plate, where they eventually melted in the sun.

Using that wormy liquid as a balm, he wiped the shingles, and for the very first time,Emperor Taizu felt a cool relief.

But this wasnt the end of the treatment. Next, the doctor fed the emperor a bowl ofearthworm juicea few days later, he was healed. As a tribute to the night crawlers, theemperor announced a new name for the worms: Earth Dragons.

Li Shizhen was also a firm believer in the earthworms merits, and noted the creaturesability to clear internal heat, nourish the lungs and calm asthma, as well as heal aches injoints and skin problems.

Dai Wenjuan, a TCM scholar atShanxiTCMUniversity, explained that earthworms are stillwidely used. They can be applied both externally and internally, she said. Eatingearthworms can treat asthma, swollen joints and rheumatic arthritis. Externally, it willstop allergic skin reactions.

Yu Fenghai started his first earth dragon farm, Guangxi Bohai Earthworm CooperativeSociety, five years ago in a small village inSouthern Chinas Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous



Region. We churn out 500 kilos of earthworms every day, he said, proudly. Most of themare sold to TCM pharmacies and factories.

At a pharmacy, one kilo of dried worms sells for about 90 RMB.

Guangxi is not just a hotspot for earthworm farming, but also for earthworm eating. Downthere, theyre found in liquor, in pancakes, stir fried with veggies, everywhere.

Farmer Yus favorite earthworm recipe is Earth Dragon Soup. To make it, fry200gofearthworms with50gof smashed ginger in a pan with oil. Add one spoon of rice wine and600ml of cold water and let it boil for half an hour. Add salt to taste.

Earth Dragon Soup can improve circulation and calm down asthma, said Yu. And whatsmore, it tastes niceeven better than pork soup!

Pork soup does taste nice, and its a frequently-used mask for the salty taste of sea horse,which is one of the most popular, and most mysterious, TCM ingredients of allone thateven rivals ginseng.

Much like ginseng, sea horses are often used as an aphrodisiac, and to reinforce thekidneys yang. As the Guangxi saying goes:

Eating sea horses

makes an 80-year-old

granddaddy young.

Chng ch him,

bsh gnggng lo li sho.

One legendary fan of thestrange equine fish was Emperor Tangminghuang, one of the most popular emperors ofChina. He ruled from 712 to 756, and drank sea horse-infused liquor in his later years.This was hundreds of years ago, but the fish remains a bestselling tonic. Professor LuYannian, of the Chinese Old Age Research Group, suggests middle-aged couples use itregularly to enhance their private lives.

One contemporary enhancer is Neil Zhong, who buys his sea horses in Hong Kong toconsume in theUK. He soaks them in 500ml of top-shelf whiskey, and drinks a small cupevery night after dinner. While his passport reveals hes 50 years old, he looks and actsmuch younger.

Exercise and sea horse wine are my secrets, he laughs.

Unwilling to waste even a bit, Zhong chews up the sea horse after emptying a bottle. Itssalty, and has the consistency of squid, but the fish also costs up to 5,000 RMB a kilo.



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Others will cook it into a soup with pork and dates, or stew it with pigs kidneys. You canalso take it as a powder or in capsule form.

And yet, be forewarned that sea horses are a slow cure. Dr. Tang Shulan, who doesrecommend them as a remedy, says, This isnt Viagra. Its a tonic. You have to take itregularly, and dont expect to see effects in a short time.

Dr. Bai Xiaofeng bought four, ate them, and saw no effect at all. Rich people can affordmore, he said, but I cant.

Sea horses are not only expensive, theyre also at risk: its reported that 20 million a yearare sold for TCM purposes alone. Theyre protected in China and only legal when farmednot when caught in the wild. So before you go on a sea horse binge, stop and think about it.

Maybe you should try ants instead.

Special thanks to the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine Museum.

strangeqgui snakesh antmy to bakeko A: How can I improve my Chinese?Znme tgo w de zhngwn? B: Eat more tongue!Du ch din shtou!

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