Is the nutritional value of bird's nest high?

Knowledge point: Everyone knows that bird's nest is a nourishing top grade, but not all bird's nests can be eaten. The truly nutritious bird's nest is the nest of Swift and several swallows in Jin Siyan. According to the analysis of modern nutrition, the main components of bird's nest are trace elements such as protein, carbohydrates, cellulose, calcium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, potassium and several amino acids, which can basically be synthesized by human body or obtained from other foods. Therefore, the nutritional value of bird's nest is not particularly high.

In the fourth season of ipartment, an elegant psychiatrist appeared. The psychologist told a story. One of his patients always thought he was a swallow and gave him bird's nest every year. At first, he thought the patient was thanking him, but later he realized that he was spitting at him. Although this is a joke, it also reflects from the side that many people still give bird's nest as a gift, especially the legendary "blood swallow", which has repeatedly sold at sky-high prices. So is bird's nest really worth pursuing?

A bird's nest is a swallow's nest, but this kind of swallow is not a common swallow that nests with soil under the eaves. Swallows that use soil to build nests are called domestic swallows, which belong to passeriformes, while the swallows that make edible bird's nests are called "Jin Siyan", which is a general term for several swallows of Swift Family and Swiftlet genus. They are mainly distributed in India, Southeast Asia, Malay Archipelago and other regions. Every March and April, Jin Siyan will find a place to settle down and prepare to lay eggs. In order to breed the next generation, before laying eggs, they will mix sticky saliva with other things to build nests. These nests will be picked and processed, which is the bird's nest we eat.

As an exotic product, bird's nest was given to the emperor as a tribute very early, so some people say it is a sacred product with rich nutrition and nourishing yin. However, according to the analysis of modern nutrition, bird's nest is mainly composed of protein, carbohydrates, cellulose, calcium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, potassium and other trace elements and a variety of amino acids. Among these amino acids, only lysine is essential for human body, and there are three conditional amino acids. Carbohydrate exists in most foods, while cellulose and trace elements are not particularly prominent. As far as nutritional value is concerned, it is only a low-grade food. After all, it's just a nest made of saliva and feathers by Jin Siyan, just for the sake of reproduction and peaceful coexistence, and it's not rich in nutrition.

In addition to ordinary bird's nest, there is another kind of bird's nest that has been frequently exposed in the news in recent two years-blood swallow. Because of its red appearance, it is said that swallows are overworked and vomit blood. People in China often say that "you can make up what you eat", so blood swallow is said to have the effect of enriching blood. Actually, think about it. How big is a swallow? He had to vomit blood when he built his nest, and he was already dead. In the origin of bird's nest in South China and Southeast Asia, people collect bird's nest in two places, one is under the eaves, and the bird's nest collected here is often white and ordinary, while the nest built by swallows on the rocks of caves has been attached to the rock wall for a long time, and minerals have infiltrated into the bird's nest, which makes the bird's nest appear red, which is what we often call blood swallow. The nutritional value of blood swallow is not much higher than ordinary bird's nest except that the minerals are a little more than ordinary bird's nest. Moreover, due to the low production of blood swallows and the large number of people who want them, driven by interests, many unscrupulous businessmen dye white bird's nest as blood swallows and sell it at high prices. Poor nutrition is tossed around like this, and it may become a harmful drug.

Now you should understand the value of bird's nest. The spread of bird's nest is actually a result of the hype of merchants, and its purpose is to serve commercial interests. Therefore, if you have extra spare money, you might as well go to the vegetable market to buy more tofu and vegetables, so that nutrition will be more practical.