Insectophobes would probably agree that any spot that breed billions of cockroaches a year is akin to hell on Earth .
That place in reality live — in the Sichuan Province city of Xichang — but China ’s politics say it ’s all for a good cause . The indoor farm is tax with engender 6 billion creepy - crawlies a twelvemonth to meet the land ’s demand for a special " healing potion " whose main ingredient is ground - up roaches .
While there are other cockroach cover facilities in China that serve the same determination , the one in Xichang is the man ’s largest , with a building " the size of two sport field of study , " according to theSouth China Morning Post .
The facility is reportedly dark , humid , and fully seal , with cockroaches cave in the exemption to roam and multiply as they please . If , for any unmatched intellect , someone should want to visit the facility , they ’d have to swap out their day apparel for a sanitized cause to avoid bringing pollutants or pathogen into the environment , fit in toGuangming Daily , a government newspaper .
The newspaper article contains a queerly poetical description of the roach farm :
Less poetic , though , is the verbal description of how the " miracle " potion is made . Once the bugs reach matureness , they are fed into machines and ground up into a cockroach library paste . The potion claims to influence wonders for stomach painful sensation and stomachic complaint , and consort to its promotional material , it has a " slimly sweet " tasting and a " slenderly suspicious smell . "
The provincial government claims that the potion has heal more than 40 million affected role , and that the Xichang farm is selling its product to more than 4000 hospitals throughout China . While this may seem slightly off - putting , cockroaches have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of old age .
Some report seem to support the potential nutritionary benefit of cockroaches . TheBBCreported on the discovery that cockroaches get their own antibiotic drug , remind scientists to wonder whether they could be used in drugs to aid extinguish bacterial infection such asE. coliand MRSA .
In 2016 , scientists in Bangalore , India , pick up that the guts of one peculiar mintage of cockroach contain milk protein crystals that come along to be nutritious , TIMEreports . They read the milk crystal could potentially be used as a protein addendum for human consumption , as it pack more than three times the energy of dairy Milk River .
" I could see them in protein crapulence , " Subramanian Ramaswamy , a biochemist who led the discipline , toldTheWashingtonPost .
However , as inquiry has been limited , it ’s improbable that Americans will start to see roach smoothie at their local juice bar anytime shortly .
[ h / tSouth China Morning Post ]
