In the Ming Dynasty, there was a book called "Five Miscellanies", and there was a record about sea cucumber: "Sea cucumber is produced in Liaodong seaside, so it is called sea cucumber." During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, sea cucumbers were sent to the palace as tributes for the emperor to nourish, and there were sea cucumbers in the famous "Manchu-Han Banquet".
In modern times, sea cucumber was once forgotten by the people, but with the increasing popularity of folk health care, in the 1980 s and 1990 s, sea cucumber returned to people's field of vision and became a high-end tonic for the public.
However, "eating sea cucumber" seems to be only carried forward in China. The remaining countries that also eat sea cucumbers, either Japan, South Korea or Southeast Asia, belong to the Greater China cultural circle, while Europeans and Americans never seem to eat sea cucumbers.
Why don't crooked nuts eat sea cucumbers?
Is it because sea cucumber has no nutrition, or simply because it tastes bad?
Dr. Bao Shen said that foreigners don't eat sea cucumbers, which doesn't mean that the nutritional value of sea cucumbers is low, and it doesn't mean that sea cucumbers abroad are not delicious. It's just a difference in food culture. Just as foreigners don't eat bird's nest in China, foreigners who eat preserved eggs in China say it is the worst food in the world.
According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, sea cucumber is flat, sweet and salty, enters the heart, kidney, spleen and lung meridians, and has the effects of tonifying kidney and nourishing blood, strengthening yang and replenishing essence. Most people in China believe in the theory of "food supplement" of traditional Chinese medicine, and think that sea cucumber has the function of "tonifying kidney and nourishing blood", so they all eat sea cucumber for health preservation.
However, Western medicine does not have the theory of "deficiency of qi and blood" and "deficiency of kidney", and its analysis of pathology is concrete, not because of "excessive internal heat" or "spleen deficiency", so their research on sea cucumber is more focused on medicine and pharmacology. Modern medicine has also proved that the substances in sea cucumber have very high medicinal value.
What's the difference between foreign sea cucumbers and domestic sea cucumbers?
In addition to the different uses mentioned above, the growth environment of overseas sea cucumbers is also very different from that of domestic sea cucumbers. The wild sea cucumber resources in China have basically dried up. At present, the sea cucumbers circulating in the market are mainly cultured sea cucumbers, and there are many manual interventions in the growth process. The bottom-sown sea cucumbers with the least manual intervention are closest to the quality of wild sea cucumbers. In foreign countries, because they don't eat sea cucumbers, there are still a large number of wild sea cucumbers, which grow in natural waters without human interference.
In terms of nutritional value, overseas sea cucumbers were not recognized when they first arrived in China because of their various types and different nutrition. As time goes on, people gradually realize the nutritional value of imported sea cucumbers. As a wild sea cucumber abroad, it grows for a long time, accumulates many nutrients, and has relatively high contents of collagen, unsaturated fatty acids and amino acids.
The price of sea cucumber abroad is lower. Domestic sea cucumbers are basically cultured, and the cost of breeding in all aspects is very high. At the same time, in recent years, the domestic demand for sea cucumbers has been increasing, which has also helped the price of sea cucumbers to rise to some extent. But overseas sea cucumbers are basically wild sea cucumbers. Except for fishing and processing, there is basically no need for other labor costs, so it is relatively cheap.
Consumers must also keep their eyes open when buying imported sea cucumbers, and can't listen to the one-sided words of the merchants. Because most of them don't know about foreign sea cucumbers, some unscrupulous merchants cheat consumers in various ways (adulteration and counterfeiting, shoddy). Therefore, when buying, you must go to a regular market or a merchant to buy, so that you can have basic quality assurance.