to the shops,
makes these the most expensive parasite in the world, Yartsa Gunbu, (Ophiocordyceps
sinensis), it is a fungus that infects ghost moth caterpillars on the
Tibetan Plateau, fetching up to $50,000 a pound, photograph Deepak
Raj Bhatt/Wikimedia Commons, it has a convoluted lifestyle, have a look here for the full story,
Yartsa Gunbu shop, Tibet, photograph Erik
Torner/Flickr, from humble beginnings, Yartsa Gunbu is a good way for local communities to
supplement their yearly earnings, in Bhutan, for example, the fungus trade
makes up a considerable part of the gross domestic products, and in many
Tibetan villages, harvesting the fungus is one of the few ways for families to
sustain themselves, usually selling Yartsa Gunbu for only a few hundred dollars
per pound,
but, passing through chains of middlemen, the Yartsa Gunbu
parasites reach Hong Kong and bustling metropolises in mainland China, where
they sell for ludicrous amounts of money, according to The Atlantic, the global market for Yartsa Gunbu was worth
between $5 and $11 billion, with the finest specimens of the parasite selling
for up to $140,000 per kilogram. But even cheaper specimens are highly coveted
in China, where even members of the middle-class have started spending small
fortunes on it, taking it as a prophylactic against all sorts of conditions, when ever I read of this sort of thing, I always wonder, how did someone find out about this?
No comments:
Post a Comment