Since the beginning of our existence, humans have systematically tested everything that occurs in nature for its nutritional and medicinal benefits. For thousands of years, he had very direct access to nature, which was vital for survival. Whatever he found in nature was subjected to the question "What use is this to me?".
He was always thinking about how the thing growing, lying, standing or crawling could become part of ourselves. How does it become a building block in our own body so that it can fulfil a useful task? Since the struggle for survival has become less strenuous and since direct contact with nature is no longer as direct for many people as it used to be, i.e. since the advent of cities, since we have been able to buy products from farmers at the market and of course even more so since industrialisation, since the emergence of modern food technology and medicine, this previously vital question of what nourishes, helps and heals us from nature is no longer so present. In Asia, the past is still present, perhaps even more so in China than in other countries in the region, because traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has preserved a uniquely comprehensive view of nature, based on its epistemology and an understanding of nature that fulfils the conditions for a genuine science, as we demand. The tools used to measure nature are not the metre, the scales and the stopwatch, as we use them in our Western conventional medicine to measure the sugar content in the blood, cholesterol, blood pressure and the time of the blood sedimentation reaction, etc. Instead, nature and man are measured according to Yin & Yang and according to correspondences in the system of the five elements, also known as the phases of change.
Once a European TCM teacher and his Chinese guest, also a TCM expert, were driving across the country when a pheasant jumped across the road in front of them. The two commented on the event at the same time: while the European praised the beauty of the pheasant, the Chinese exclaimed: 'Look what a fine meal is jumping across the road!
Every plant, every stone, every mineral and every animal, indeed every part of everything mentioned and even of man himself, was tested for its health-promoting effects in the past and in many places in China even today. We all knew that man is what he eats. We are increasingly forgetting this. In China, however, it is still said today that the next generation will be what the previous one ate and they focus their lives on creating a good basis for their children and grandchildren through their own behaviour and proper eating. Even before conceiving a child, some Chinese couples often prepare months in advance and leave nothing to chance. Choosing the right food is important, along with the right timing. So everything can be medicine. The best medicine is the right food. It prevents illness, keeps the genome fit and, in the Western sense, controls it. This part of science is called epigenetics: genes develop their effect thanks to external influences: Food and food choices are such influences, others can be emotions, the climate (no sex during a storm!) and other life circumstances. In China, it is said that the behaviour of one generation is reflected for nine more generations: Tooth positions, ADD, ADHD, height, mental disorders etc. may have more to do with the diet of parents, grandparents and great-grandparents than we think.
From Nose to Tail is a movement in the world of non-vegans and non-vegetarians that has emerged in the West in recent years. From head to tail, butchers are increasingly trying to make all parts of an animal parts of an animal to customers and no longer just the 'nice' parts such as fillet the 'nice' parts such as fillet etc. We had, and still have preference for beautiful, pink or even white meat, meat that is not riddled with fat, sinew etc. The proof of this The proof of this preference is the price. The 'cleaner' the meat, the higher the price. meat is. The fillet costs more than a Sauschwänzli or a Gnagi, Bones are even half free.
It's a completely different story in Asia, where bones are the most valuable part of the meat and fillet is considered to be rather worthless and boring. Not only the Asians, but also our grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew that bones, bone marrow and many other parts of an animal contain many valuable substances and that bones, for example, contain minerals and other substances that humans can utilise in their own bodies after suitable preparation. Some chefs know this too. They make a stock from meat, bones and vegetables by boiling them for hours and using the result to make basic sauces. This makes sense from a nutritional point of view and conjures up flavourful highlights.
As many Asians eat with chopsticks or even with their hands, meat is chopped into bite-sized pieces. A chicken is chopped in such a way that there is always a bit of everything: bones, tendons, muscle meat, joints, cartilage, veins, skin, etc. They love to gnaw off these pieces and spit out the bones. When the latter are chopped up with a large, heavy butcher's knife, access is gained to the marrow, which reveals interesting ingredients. We must not be under the illusion that the menus in Asian restaurants here fully represent the cuisine in Asia itself. Pork and other sweet and sour dishes? Hardly ever found in Asia except in restaurants and hotels frequented by Westerners.
If a chicken skeleton is left over in China, it is the ideal soup ingredient or it is cooked the next morning for three to five hours by a diligent mother-in-law in the morning (nowadays in a timer-equipped cooker) with the so-called shi fan, rice porridge, congee or porridge, so that it is ready for breakfast, because in large parts of the country, China does not have cold meals, but also something warm and rich for breakfast. So the last remnants of a chicken or a half-gnawed fish are utilised. Of course, other parts of the chicken are also considered extremely valuable: Chicken feet, together with the claws, are considered a real delicacy, meticulously cleaned, peeled and marinated. When the Chinese observed how the Australians chopped off the feet of their chickens and threw them away, they began to import whole shiploads of them to China. The inner skin of the chicken stomach is a real medicine and is traded at a high price.
Special chicken breeds are considered extra good, for example
those with black bones or black skin. These
are expensive. I know a Swiss breeder of
who happened to cross a few of these animals with others,
could not sell the chickens with the black skin and the black bones
black skin and bones because they were unfamiliar, even unsightly, to our eyes.
to our eyes. Not surprisingly, some people in Asia like the fins, the tail
the fins, the tail, the head, the brain, the spinal cord, the lips and leave the
lips and leave the rest, i.e. the fillet, to the Westerners at the table.
After all these explanations, it can now be put into perspective, who actually has the better treatment of nature, the Chinese or we the Chinese or us, who only process the best parts of an animal and process the rest into meat or fish meal in order to reintroduce it then feed it back to herbivorous animals such as cattle in a completely cattle. Should we still be surprised when something like mad cow disease emerges?
Chinese medicine works according to the system of correspondences of Yin & Yang and the five elements, as described above. Over some thirty centuries of observation, the Chinese have realised that the human body is made up of building blocks that are found in nature or can be created in the body with its help. Anyone who walks through nature with open eyes can easily find correspondences that fulfil the yin/yang principle or the 5-element doctrine. Water (cooling, replenishing) helps against thirst (= heat, deficiency), if you are cold (cold) you need to be warmed (heat, fire, sun, day...). The Chinese had observed that plants that grow near water are suitable for draining excess water in the body. Cold and dampness in the body, which leads to rheumatic complaints, can be drained in this way. Our willow is a classic example of this, as its bark is the source of salicylic acid, from which one of the first industrially produced medicines was derived as acetylsalicylic acid. Salicylic acid is not only found in willows, but also in other plants, such as the meadowsweet plant, which gave the medicine its name, aspirin. In China, it was and is believed that the correspondences (signatures) transferred from nature to humans are justified. In other words, if you are horse meat, you become strong and hot-tempered like a horse.
Even if you eat chilli, the body reacts with heat. This can help one person and harm another, depending on their constitution and current state of health. Signatures and correspondences are known in all cultures. They are often justified and modern natural science can explain them on the basis of the ingredients of a herb, a mineral or an animal, and the clinical effect confirms this. There may also be cases where there is merely a certain symbolic character, but even such situations can have an effect, from a psychological point of view this is possible and placebo also works surprisingly well, as does the opposite, nocebo.
Even though Chinese medicine, for example, does not explicitly mention rhinoceros horn as a sexual enhancer, but for a completely different purpose, namely for certain forms of high fever, other opinions persist in popular superstition. As a result, such symbolic animals (and also certain plants) are threatened with extinction because their value is high and they are hunted or excessively harvested. Most Chinese people cannot afford such generally expensive products, but if only 0.1% or 1% of the Chinese population can afford them nowadays, that is already 1.4 or 14 million people. The black market for certain products is booming. The rich Asian elite lives not only in China, but also in Singapore, Indonesia, the USA, Taiwan and also includes representatives from other countries such as Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, India and now also Europeans.
This is a sad situation, but it must be borne in mind that today's consumers from China and elsewhere are only the final executors of the sad fate of the corresponding animals and plants.
Most of these species are threatened because we are harassing and disturbing their habitats, be it through deforestation or overexploitation of their last refuges, through ruthless fishing of marine zones, through environmental pollution that harms fauna and flora in general, through intensive forest and field cultivation, monocultures, use of environmental toxins, armed conflicts, overpopulation and climate change - in short, because of all the consequences of a sprawling global economy that is constantly having to open up new markets because the capital of industrialised nations is frantically searching for them, eager to satisfy the needs of private and institutional investors. Since we have embarked on the adventure of a free market economy, we must also bear the consequences. The accusations levelled at China are only part of the whole problem. First and foremost, we have to take ourselves by the nose. China is only the last link in a chain of interdependent causes and effects.
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