Why do Chinese people love wild game so much?

At the time of SARS, it was said that the source of the virus was civet cats. More than ten years later, scientists further confirmed that, going back further, it was actually a bat.

The first time I saw this news, my stomach tightened: Could it be that someone eats bats?

Fortunately, the final conclusion is: civet cats ate bats with coronaviruses, and humans ate civet cats that ate bats with coronaviruses. As a result, the virus, which was originally harmless to bats, found a stage in the human body, flexed its muscles, and set off a bloodbath.

As the only mammals that can fly, bats have a very fast metabolism, which can cause various damages to the body, such as reactive oxygen species, DNA replication errors, etc. But bats have a long lifespan, some species can live for more than 40 years. Studies have shown that there are more genes related to gene repair in the bat genome, and the expression level is much higher than that of other mammals. These DNA repair genes have a significant role in inhibiting virus replication, so although bats carry many deadly viruses, virus replication is severely inhibited in bats.

Bats are the source of many human viruses, such as rabies virus, Ebola virus, the prototype virus of SARS, and the prototype virus of MERS.

The above content is from Wikipedia. It can be seen that, in fact, we can watch the fire from the other side, but greed makes human beings burnt. Some viruses really cannot be blocked, such as "malaria" transmitted by mosquitoes. However, some viruses are completely blamed by humans, such as the SARS virus and the "Wuhan Pneumonia" that is currently raging. It is said that its pathogens are also likely to come from wild animals.

Embarrassingly, the source of these two century disasters is China.

So, why do Chinese people love wild game so much? Are chickens, ducks, fish, cattle, sheep, and pigs not tasty enough, or do wild animals have unique nutrients that captive animals cannot provide?

Based on the understanding of a middle-aged man who was born and raised in mainland China for more than 40 years and experienced a huge life change from rural to urban, the above two answers are not rare.

In China, there is a kind of chicken called "free-range chicken" and a kind of egg called "native egg". Any vegetable market or restaurant, as long as they advertise that their chickens and eggs are the above two, they will consciously compete with those "coquettish chickens" sold by others. It's not the same as "cheap goods", and immediately becomes noble, so you can raise the price justifiably. Of course, what affects the price is supply and demand. The reason why people can sell high prices is not because there are more people who eat this way.

You may ask: what does that have to do with wild game, which is not wild game?

Yes, "free-range chicken" and "native eggs" are not wild game. However, compared with "captive chickens" and "foreign eggs", they are closer to game in terms of "feeling". After all, pheasants are all in the mountains, and it is not so easy to eat them. Then if you want to ask what is good about this more expensive one, nine out of ten people will tell you: it is delicious and nutritious.

Delicious, maybe there is, after all, this thing is a subjective feeling, which cannot be quantified, let alone it has a huge relationship with the cook's cooking skills. However, good nutrition is a verifiable thing. But if you tell him that after scientific testing, there is no significant difference in the molecular structure and main components of these two types of chickens and these two types of eggs, he will probably scoff.

Because the ancestors told us that the more natural, the better. Could there be any mistakes in what the ancestors said? Then if you tell him again, if what the ancestors said is correct, then the society should be getting worse and worse. After all, modern industry is developed on the basis of destroying the old and establishing the new. He will reply you more straightforwardly: modern industry is not omnipotent!

You can only cry angrily.

So he continued to eat his "free-range chicken and eggs", and you continued to be angry. If things just stay on "free-range chickens and native eggs", it is no big deal. If he spends money to buy happiness, the merchants will also make some money, and the GDP can reach a new high. Everyone is happy.

But the bad thing is that everything is connected. He believed in his ancestors, and the things his ancestors told him were not just wild chickens.

The ancestors said that fish maw can strengthen yang, so the totoaba in the Gulf of California suffered a disaster, and the vaquita was extinct one after another. Speaking of which, the vaquita is particularly innocent. Originally, the Chinese wanted to eat totoaba, but because the vaquita was their neighbor, they were often injured by gillnets used to catch totoaba, and innocent people died. At present, the number of vaquitas has dropped to almost negligible, and the genocide is only a matter of time.

But don't think that the only innocent ones are the vaquita. In fact, even the totoaba in the Gulf of California died for no apparent reason. Originally, the fish maw eaten by the Chinese naturally came from the waters of China, and the most rare and rare one was the yellow-lipped fish in the Yellow Sea area of the East China Sea. Later, the yellow lip fish was eaten up, but there are still so many people in China who need to strengthen their genitals, what should we do? You can only find it abroad. There is no yellow-lipped fish abroad, so look for one that looks like it. Anyway, those Chinese who have been "yang-deficiency" for many years are thirsty for strength, so they don't know how to distinguish them, so they found the totoaba on the other side of the world. .

What does the totoaba know? Misfortune falls from the sky, innocent people are lying on the ground, and extinction is imminent. It is said that now, the Mexican government has allowed artificial breeding of totoaba, and the Chinese have no choice but to earn money.

Totoaba as a species may be lucky enough to continue to survive on Earth. The vaquita, on the other hand, may have lost its chance.

According to the acoustic data collected in the summer of 2018, there are only a maximum of 22 and at least 6 juvenile porpoises left in the world, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that there are about 10 or so.

In 2017, more than 60 scientists and divers tried to move the vaquita to a safe place, but in the end the plan failed due to the stress response and death of the vaquita.

The above is from Wikipedia.

Regarding the encounters of the California totoaba, the vaquita, and the Chinese yellow-lipped fish, here is a popular science radio program, which speaks much better than I do. I put it here, and those who are interested can listen to it. #汪言:科学有故事#'s radio program "Selection: Do you believe that a swim bladder costs 100,000 yuan?" "

Having said so much, the core idea is actually to say that the Chinese people's love for game is rooted in the myths about "natural", "tonifying" and "strong" from ancient times to the present.

Eating one species, or even several types of wild animals, might not seem like a big deal. However, if you continue to eat, break the boundaries of species, create super viruses, and put the entire human race in danger, you think it may not be a big problem. But, as a Chinese, I'm really embarrassed.