Many people pursue eating wild vegetables and game, thinking that everything wild is good. Is this true?

To understand this problem, we must first understand a simple but often overlooked truth, that is, all the grown and farmed vegetable and meat delicacies that humans enjoy today originated from the wild.

All living things have come into being from nothing, all the same lineage.

At the beginning of the world, when the earth was born, the earth was barren and without any hair. Later, life gradually emerged. Life evolved from the simplest cells to fungi and algae. After 4 billion years of differentiation and evolution, the world composed of animals, plants, microorganisms, etc. was formed.

Humans emerged from this evolution. Therefore, no matter animals, plants or bacteria, they are all of the same origin, starting from the earliest cell ancestor. It was not until millions of years ago that humans emerged from apes. But when they first became humans, they were just savages, eating raw meat and drinking blood, eating whatever they had, and they had no conditions to be picky. Not having enough to eat and not having warm clothes is an adjective that only appeared when humans developed to a very advanced stage. At that time, they only had not enough to eat, and they had no clothes at all.

It was not until humans learned to use fire that they made a qualitative leap and truly distinguished themselves from other animals. Humans began to eat roasted food, which made food easier to digest and the nutrients in it more easily absorbed by the body, and humans began to become stronger. As early humans began to move out of the jungle and their language and thinking developed, they began to try to convert wild animals and plants into farmed plants.

The development of animal husbandry and planting industries has created human society.

Human attempts at breeding and planting were initially developed accidentally. For example, if they could not eat all the live animals they hunted, they would keep them in captivity and eat them when they could not hunt due to weather or other reasons and had no meat to eat. For convenience, they would bring some delicious wild vegetables back and plant them near the campsite. Gradually, people realized the many benefits of doing so, and it became popular, and breeding and planting industries came into being.

After thousands of years of evolution, humans domesticated the most delicious, best-grown and best-raised wild vegetables, wild beasts and wild birds, and turned them into today's vegetables, livestock and poultry. With the long-term cultivation and improvement of humans, these vegetables, livestock and poultry are becoming more and more delicious, with higher yields and richer nutrition. As a result, human society has gradually moved from barbarism to civilization, and life has become more and more comfortable from lack of food and clothing.

As for those animals and plants that are difficult to domesticate, or not tasty or easy to grow, or even poisonous and harmful, or that are not worth the cost to breed, humans eliminated them and left them to grow wild, thus becoming today's wild game. It can be seen that the so-called wild game and vegetables are eliminated by humans after thousands of years of selection, and are not good things.

When people enjoy too much, there will always be people who want to do something.

One group of troublemakers is the one that exists in every dynasty, and they make a fuss about returning to their ancestors every now and then. These people think that their ancestors were good in everything, and they wish they could go back to the ape-man era, where they could use the sky as their house and the trees as their bed, breathe in the nature and enjoy the nature, how comfortable it is. In modern times, there are some people who clamor to eat wild vegetables and game every day. Under the instigation of some so-called "health experts", eating wild vegetables and game has become a fashion, and the civilization accumulated by humans for thousands of years - the food grown and raised - has been thrown away.

If we think about it, it was so difficult for our ancestors at that time to grow a wild vegetable seedling or to tame the captive prey and give birth to cubs. It took many generations of people to get these results today, but we despise them. Isn't this like being ungrateful for what we have?

So, are those who pursue eating wild vegetables, game, raw frogs and dead mice really healthy? In fact, there is no need to say much truth. Look around you or ask yourself, are those who pursue these things, those who have the ability to get wild vegetables and game every day, and those who do not eat foreign eggs but only local eggs every day, healthier than those who do not pursue these things?

I don't think so. I know a few people who have been pursuing these things all their lives, but they don't necessarily live longer than others. Instead, they suffer from more illnesses and some even pass away early.

In fact, these people have never understood what is so good about wild vegetables and game, they just follow the crowd. If you really want to pursue nature, there are still many indigenous people living in the Amazon rainforest who live a slash-and-burn life. There are really many wild vegetables and game there. Is anyone willing to live this kind of life?

Blindly pursuing wild vegetables and game is anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.

The logic here is unreasonable. In primitive society, the average life expectancy of humans was only 15 years old. Before that, when apes had just transformed into primitive humans, that is, before humans learned to use fire, they ate raw food and drank blood. They ate the wildest and rawest food. The life expectancy at that time was probably even lower, right?

As human civilization has become more sophisticated, people's ability to survive has gradually improved, and their life expectancy has gradually increased. Studies have shown that the average human life expectancy was about 15 years old in primitive society, about 18 years old in the Xia Dynasty, 20 years old in the Qin and Han Dynasties, 22 years old in the Eastern Han Dynasty, 27 years old in the Tang Dynasty, 30 years old in the Song Dynasty, 33 years old in the Qing Dynasty, 57 years old in 1957, 68 years old in 1981, 70.8 years old in 1999, 71.8 years old in 2000, and some developed cities such as Guangzhou and Shanghai have reached 76 years old.

What does this show? Of course, it shows that health and life expectancy improve with the improvement of social civilization. Although there are also influences from war and famine, the improvement of nutrition of vegetables and meat products also contributes to it, right? Generally speaking, the older the history, the scarcer the vegetables and food people enjoy, so the proportion of wild vegetables and game to fill their stomachs is greater. If wild vegetables and game are really good, then wouldn’t life expectancy be longer in ancient times? Why is it the opposite? This shows that the less wild vegetables and game people eat, the healthier humans are and the longer their life expectancy.

So how nutritious are wild vegetables and game flavors?

From a scientific and logical point of view, the nutrition of artificially grown vegetables and farmed livestock and poultry is definitely much better than that of wild vegetables and game. This is because all varieties of crops and farmed animals have been carefully selected and cultivated by humans for thousands or tens of thousands of years. With the participation of modern science, through hybridization, improvement, and even genetic modification, the nutritional content, yield, and quality of these animals and plants have been greatly improved.

Moreover, during the planting and breeding process, the planting industry has sufficient fertilizer nutrients and trace elements, the breeding industry has complete nutritional feed rations, and there are strict disinfection measures to prevent parasites and fungi. Therefore, the vegetables and meat on the market are healthy and nutritious.

What about wild vegetables and game? They grow in nature without seeds, fertilizers, or food, and are likely to be contaminated by various pollutants and invaded by parasites and bacteria. Eating them is not good for your health. In fact, the nutrition of wild vegetables is not that good. Except for more fiber, they are not as nutritious as common vegetables. Even if you eat a big pot of wild vegetables, you will not get as much nutrition as a tomato or carrot.

Moreover, the taste of wild vegetables is not very good. I have also eaten some wild vegetables in restaurants. Most of them have a rough texture and are not delicious. They are far inferior to the vegetables we usually eat.

And you must prevent poisoning when eating wild vegetables.

There are more than 300 kinds of wild vegetables in my country, most of which are inedible or poisonous. Among them, only dozens of species are edible, and only about 10 species are commonly used. Even among these 10 species, some are slightly poisonous, such as purslane, Chinese toon, and bracken.

Purslane has a high oxalic acid content, which will combine with calcium in the body to form calcium oxalate precipitates after being eaten, which not only affects the absorption of calcium but also easily forms stones; Chinese toon contains more nitrates and nitrites, which can easily cause food poisoning and also produce carcinogens in the body; bracken contains a substance called "protopteroside", which has a certain degree of carcinogenicity, and bracken contains too much fiber, so it is difficult to digest if you eat too much.

Therefore, it is okay to eat these wild vegetables occasionally, but it is not good to eat too much for a long time.

In the 1990s, it was popular in Taiwan to eat a wild vegetable called "Tianluxiang". Some health experts touted this wild vegetable as a "weight loss vegetable", claiming that eating a few pounds would reduce a few pounds, causing a large-scale poisoning storm. There were nearly 300 cases in Taiwan. From July to November 1995, when it peaked, the Taichung Veterans General Hospital alone admitted 104 patients who were hospitalized for eating Tianluxiang. Several patients developed pulmonary fibrosis and survived only after lung transplants, and some eventually died. 54 people still had breathing difficulties 35 days after stopping eating it.

Analysis shows that this wild vegetable contains 4 times the amount of cadmium, which can cause liver, kidney and reproductive system diseases, chronic breathing difficulties, severe lung dysfunction and other symptoms. Eating 150-200g of Tianluxiang every day will cause toxic reactions in about 20 days, and the symptoms will increase with the increase in consumption.

This type of cadmium poisoning also occurred regionally in Japan in the 1940s. They called the disease "Itai-itai disease," and the patients suffered severe pain all over their bodies and osteoporosis. In order to prevent such cases from happening again, the Food Safety Expert Committee under the Guangdong Food and Drug Administration has determined the toxicity of Tianluxiang and recommended that residents not consume it regularly for a long time.

Let’s talk about the taste and nutrition of game.

In fact, game (mainly referring to land animals) does not taste good. People who are not used to it will feel a strong mutton smell when they eat it once in a while, which is really not delicious. Of course, those old diners who are addicted to it are exceptions, just like some people like stinky tofu, which is also fragrant. Humans have domesticated animals for thousands of years, and their meat has been modified according to human needs. The taste is naturally more delicious than game, but people eat too much and don't cherish it anymore.

What about nutrition? The main nutrition of meat is protein. Relatively speaking, livestock and poultry are fatter because they are well-fed, have plenty of food, and exercise less; while wild animals are always looking for food, competing, running and fighting, and often go hungry. Since they exercise a lot and don't eat enough, of course they have more muscle and less fat.

Professionally speaking, wild animal meat contains more protein and less fat. In ancient times, when people were hungry and cold, this kind of meat was not as nutritious as livestock. But now, people are fat and clamoring to lose weight every day, so naturally wild game is more nutritious.

But the problem is that we are not lacking in nutrition now. The nutrition of livestock and poultry is good enough to meet the needs of the human body. If you are afraid of too much fat, you can eat less pork and more beef, chicken and fish. Why do you have to eat the fishy and smelly game?

Moreover, the living environment of wild game is full of various uncertainties. Wild game carries a variety of viruses and bacteria, and may be contaminated in various ways. Eating wild game is not good for the human body. Many viral diseases that endanger humans, such as the new coronavirus that is sweeping the world now, are caused by wild animals. Therefore, it is safer and healthier to stay away from wild animals, especially not to eat wild animals.

Let’s talk about local eggs and foreign eggs.

What people usually call foreign eggs are actually ordinary eggs produced by chicken farms. Local eggs are eggs produced by a few chickens raised by farmers themselves. Some people also call eggs produced by chickens raised in the mountains local eggs or firewood eggs. Local eggs on the market are more expensive and smaller, and generally cost more than 1 to 2 times the price of ordinary eggs.

So are free range eggs good? I don't know. Many institutions and experts have analyzed the nutritional content of foreign and free range eggs, and they are basically the same. In addition, foreign eggs generally have higher levels of protein, calcium, and vitamins than free range eggs. The only thing that is high in free range eggs is cholesterol, so they are more fragrant when fried, that's all.

Nowadays, people's cholesterol levels are generally above the standard, especially the elderly. Eating free-range eggs is really not good for the body. Why should we waste money and suffer the consequences?

I have said so much, just to persuade you not to pursue wild vegetables and game, but to cherish the achievements of human civilization since ancient times. It is enough to have a balanced nutrition with meat and vegetables. If you really want to change your taste, it is okay to eat wild vegetables that have been proven to be safe occasionally, but you must blanch them and cook them to remove the toxins. But don't eat them regularly for a long time, otherwise it will really be more trouble than gain.

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