Fake caterpillar fungus

Chinese food inspectors have issued a warning to those planning to buy caterpillar fungus: Many samples of caterpillar fungus have been replaced by fakes. These fakes "not only miss their medicinal function, but could even be poisonous."

According to Wikipedia, caterpillar fungus is one of the most prized ingredients in traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicine:

it is used as an aphrodisiac and as a treatment for a variety of ailments from fatigue to cancer. It is regarded as having an excellent balance of yin and yang as it is apparently both animal and vegetable (though it is in actuality not vegetable, but fungal).

So my guess is that the "real" stuff does basically nothing.

Health/Medicine

Posted on Wed Sep 24, 2008



Comments

I've seen this things when I was in China, and at that time couldn't make much sense of the description of "animal first, then plant". Now I get it.
Posted by LaMa  on  Thu Sep 25, 2008  at  12:28 AM
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