China's history of using ants as food can be traced back to 3000 years ago. As early as when humans were still sucking blood, our ancestors were inspired by the strength of bears, pangolins and other animals because of the large number of ants and began to try to eat ants. The earliest literature records can be found in Zhou Li Tian Gong and the Book of Rites Internal Rules, "Insects eat the Son of Heaven". Insect mites are mosquito eggs, and insect mites are sauce made of ant eggs. At that time, it was a precious food that only emperors and nobles could enjoy. In the Tang Dynasty, Liu Yao wrote in the book "The Record of Different Ridges": "The chiefs in Jiaoguangxi Cave take more ant eggs to make them clean. Bittern is considered as sauce, or cloud is tasted as meat sauce, which is essential, and officials and guests visit." Food that dignitaries still enjoy. When Lu You, a great poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote "Old Learning Anyi", there was a cloud in "The Origin of Peasant Households", saying that "a wide range of people dug big ant eggs in the mountains to make sauce", and this precious food, ant paste, gradually became popular among the people.

For thousands of years, it has been a custom to eat ants and treat them as health food. It is widely circulated among all ethnic groups in China. Today, in the southwest of China, all the brotherly peoples still use ants, eggs and pupae as delicacies to entertain distinguished guests. Abroad, whether in Asia, Africa, Europe or Latin America, people in many countries and regions use ants as one of the food sources or ants as the main ingredients to make exquisite dishes, create cakes, drinks, drinks and refreshing drinks, and make advanced nutritious foods.

Some countries regard making ant food as an important industry. Professor Hu La Elorduy of the School of Biology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico even predicted that "in the future when the population increases rapidly, insects such as ants will become a wise move for human beings to solve the food shortage". Eating ants has a very obvious effect on delaying aging. For example, Yan Zhongshan, a 97-year-old man who lives in Heilongjiang State-owned Hongxing Farm at the foot of Xiaoxing 'anling, has quick thinking, clear head, good teeth and can often do housework. In an interview, Yan said that he lived long because he ate ants. Since eating ants, he feels full of energy and energy, and he doesn't feel tired after doing many jobs. At the age of 64, he has another child, at the age of 73, and he has grown up. In many countries and regions in the world, many old people live long because they eat ants all the year round. Medicine: As a medicine, ants have a very old origin in China. The "empty pill" for treating weakness of bones and muscles in Han Dynasty was made of ant powder and honey pills, which was widely circulated among the people. In the medical works of Tang and Song Dynasties, the morphology and therapeutic effects of ants were recorded. /kloc-Li Shizhen, a medical scientist in the 6th century, was the first to record the medicinal properties of ants in detail. He did a lot of investigation and research, and in his masterpiece Compendium of Materia Medica, he made a detailed and incisive discussion on the morphology, medicinal properties and edible value of ants, which became an important reference document for later scholars. In the Compendium of Materia Medica written by Zhao Xuemin in Qing Dynasty, it is said that ant eggs are top-grade seeds, sweet in taste and flat in nature, which can invigorate qi, enhance color (beauty) and promote lactation, and are used to treat qi and blood deficiency and postpartum hypogalactia after illness. The folk prescription of ant medicine is widely circulated among all ethnic groups in China, such as treating postpartum hypogalactia with ant stewed tofu in Northeast China; Treating rheumatic joint pain (old cold leg) by soaking ants in wine in northwest China; In Guangxi, ants are used to mix flour and steamed meatballs to supplement the elderly and the infirm. Ants are used to treat tinea, and ant powder is used to treat bronchitis, chronic gastritis, irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea, neurosis, tuberculosis, alopecia after illness, impotence, etc.

Professor Wu Zhicheng started as a military doctor in the army and eventually became the "ant king" of the army. He devoted 40 years to the study of ants. During the war, he used ant therapy to alleviate the pain of countless patients and cured many incurable diseases. Treating rheumatism and rheumatoid diseases with ant preparation is his main direction. Many countries in the world also have examples of ants taking medicine. Indians in Guyana, South America, surgeons often suture with ants after surgery. Many folk doctors use the sweetness of ants to diagnose whether patients have diabetes by detecting urine sugar. Mexico uses the secretion of ants to treat poisonous insect bites. The former Soviet Union used ants to make ointment to treat suppurative dermatosis and neurodermatitis. Ant powder is used to treat old rotten leg (chronic lower limb ulcer) caused by zinc deficiency. University of Miami confirmed that Bolivian ants can treat rheumatoid arthritis. Australian biologists have found that ants can produce a new antibiotic, which can treat refractory fungal infections. Japan uses ants to treat chilblain, insect sting and neuralgia. Ants are used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and coma in South America, stroke, dizziness, rheumatism and paralysis in Europe, rheumatoid arthritis in Africa, epilepsy in Brazil, impotence and anal recurrence in Arabia, painless childbirth in Britain, trauma and fatigue in India, sexiness in Mali, Bali and Thailand, and scabies in Malaysia. ...

Scientific research: The scientific research on ants has been paid attention to by all countries in the world. Although the basic experimental research on ants in China started late, in the past decade, due to the attention of relevant scientific research units and medical colleges, breakthroughs have been made. 198865438+In February, China Association for Science and Technology invited scholars and experts to scientifically determine the nutritional components of Polyrhachis vicina. The protein content in its body is as high as 67%, and there are 28 kinds of free amino acids, among which 8 kinds are necessary for human body, including vitamins B 1, B2, B 12, E, etc., which contain calcium and iron. The content of zinc in ant powder per 1000 g is as high as 120~ 198 mg, which is 8 times that of soybean and 3 times that of pig liver. It also contains many enzymes, steroids, triterpenoids, citral and formic acid. German scholars have specially analyzed the aldehyde compounds in ants, and found that the main one is' grass ant aldehyde '(c 10h 16o 2), which has a good function of relaxing muscles and promoting blood circulation, and its nourishing power exceeds that of the same amount of wild ginseng. It is also found that the source of great strength of ants is adenosine triphosphate in their bodies. In-depth experimental research on ants by Chinese and foreign scientists proves that ant preparation can treat debilitating diseases, neurosis, rheumatoid arthritis, sciatica, gout, dermatomyositis, hemiplegia, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, chronic cough and asthma, gastropathy, cholecystitis, various tumors, lupus erythematosus, hemorrhoids, alopecia after illness, baldness, impotence, nocturnal emission, infertility and irregular menstruation. Traditional Chinese medicine also believes that the weakness of kidney essence is an important cause of human aging, and the prominent role of ants is to tonify kidney and strengthen yang, which can increase the weight of testis and ovary, increase the DNA and RNA content of interstitial cells and spermatocytes of seminiferous tubules, greatly promote cell division, and thus enhance human sexual function. At the same time, ants can increase the synthesis of DNA and RNA in immune cells and increase immune cells, so they are ideal anti-aging agents. It can also effectively promote the proliferation and development of organs such as thymus and spleen, and is a broad-spectrum immune synergist. The most striking thing is that ants have a unique two-way immunomodulation effect on cellular immunity, which can improve immune hypofunction and regulate immune hyperfunction, and achieve a self-stable balance state of human body, so that the human body naturally strengthens. Therefore, ants are praised by scientists as "a treasure house of micro-animal nutrition" and "a natural medicine processing factory".

Scientific research on ants is in the ascendant. With the deepening of research, the medicinal and nutritional value of ants will be continuously explored and applied. Ant health care products with the nutritional value of ants as the development object have great potential.

Anti-aging: Chinese medicine believes that human aging is mainly in two aspects: first, imbalance; The second is a virtual loss. Huangdi Neijing said: "Yin Pingyang is the secret, God is the rule, Yin and Yang are separated, and essence is the absolute." The shape of a person is nothing more than blood, and the use of a person is nothing more than external qi (function). Qi and blood complement each other, depend on each other and coordinate with each other. Qi leads to blood circulation, and gasification leads to blood production. Once qi stagnates, blood will be blocked and stagnated. Qi deficiency can't melt blood, let alone promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis. Due to human worldly desires, trauma and other reasons, first, the imbalance of qi and blood, the obstruction of normal circulation, stagnation of blood stasis, so that the viscera can not be nourished normally, viscera failure, essence failure; The decline of biochemical function of qi aggravates the formation of blood stasis, leads to a vicious circle and eventually leads to aging. Therefore, the essence of human aging lies in qi deficiency and blood stasis, and qi and blood imbalance. If we can replenish qi and promote blood circulation and balance qi and blood, we can delay aging. Motherland medicine also attributed many diseases that lead to human aging to "arthralgia", which means that it can't be blocked. Generally speaking, it refers to the evil wind blocking resistance, commonly known as the principle of anodyne, and pain is impossible. The fundamental principle of treating arthralgia syndrome in TCM is "treating wind first, then treating blood, and blood circulation will destroy itself", and the key lies in invigorating qi and activating blood circulation, strengthening body resistance and eliminating evil. If arthralgia can be cured or controlled, it can delay human aging. The anti-aging effect of ant-made food or medicine with ants as monarch medicine lies in its obvious functions of "promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis" and "strengthening the body resistance and eliminating evil".

Safety: For this reason, the researchers in the Chinese Herbal Medicine Laboratory of Guangxi College of Traditional Chinese Medicine conducted toxicity experiments on Polyrhachis vicina. Toxicity experiments are divided into acute toxicity experiments and subacute toxicity experiments. In the acute toxicity experiment, a group of mice were given 66.7% ant ointment once and observed for 7 days. None of the mice in this group died, indicating that the toxicity is extremely low or non-toxic; After oral administration of dry ant powder, the dosage was increased by 100 times according to the adult's one-time oral dosage, and no abnormality was found. All the safety tests passed. In the subacute toxicity test, compared with the control group, the rats in the experimental group fed with ant products showed no abnormalities in appearance, liver, renal function and visceral pathological examination results, and there were no toxic and side effects in clinical verification. It is fully proved that it is safe to eat Polyrhachis vicina or ant preparation.