Hi guys, nowadays we realized people are still having many misconceptions about edible bird nests. So today, we will talk about the 5 most common myths we found:
So the first one is – Red bird nests AKA blood nests are formed because the swiftlets vomited blood and they die after that.
The answer is no.
All swiftlets produce white saliva. But because of the specific farms or caves condition, it will slowly change to yellow, and eventually red color and also change its content. The swiftlets won’t die after that and normally can live up to 10 yrs.
The second one is – All white colored bird nests are bleached
The answer is still no.
When the bird nest first formed it’s all white and translucent in color. But under certain circumstances it’ll change the color to faded white color or even red color like the blood nest that was mentioned earlier. Bird nests that are bleached will have different smells when cooked.
And the third one is – edible bird nest is unethical
That is not true.
Edible bird nest is ethical, no matter from the environment point of view and the ecosystem point of view. Since people started swiftlet farming, the population of swiftlets has actually been increasing over the years. And the bird nest farmers also prefer a clean environment with more green areas to sustain the swiftlet population.
The forth one is – Bird Nest is not vegetarian
The answer is, not exactly
In fact, It is vegetarian for most people. Just like milk, a swiftlet does not die when a bird nest is harvested and people don’t consume the meat of the bird. If the nest is not harvested, the bird will keep on building the nest (like patching the existing one), but the space inside remains the same.
The last myth is – If you do Bird nest business, there will be a curse
It is just a pure myth.
People think this way is because they falsely believed that in order to harvest the nest, the bird needs to sacrifice itself. So as a curse it will cause some of the bird nest farmers’ family members to get sick often. Now we know it’s simply because in olden days bird nest farmers usually lived under the same roof with the bird, which is very unhygienic, thus its normal for them to get pathogens and diseases. Today this is no longer the case and fewer people believe it.