Bird's Nest...do you believe its good for your health?


Bird's Nest has long been believed by most Asian that it is an exotic 'health food' , people
buy bird's nest as a gift to others.

Due to it high in demand and danger in harvesting the bird's nest in high caves, now, people
are resorting in 'farming bird's nest' in converted houses.

Warning :  People who is asthmatic should avoid taking processed bird's nest, it might
trigger asthma attack due to the chemical used to process the bird's nest.


I have a friend in Kota Bharu who has converted his old shop to let the birds build nests. He let me and Ah Leng enter to see how the birds build them.

The first photos on the nests are exactly what it is when harvesting. Black and dirty.

When you see the end product it is white. These photos on the processing are also real. Bleached and no value. Bird's nest? Think again.... before eating.



    

        Before  bleaching 


   

                   After bleaching





Birds' nests which are just taken down are very dirty and smelly. Nobody will think of consuming them at all if they see the condition. Now let me show you how the birds' nests are processed so that they are edible. The workers are getting rid of the fine feathers, grass and dirt.






After getting rid of the feathers and grass, the birds' nests are cut into smaller pieces for further cleaning.

 Then they are soaked in water for other smaller particles to float to the top.





Then they are soaked in a kind of bleaching agent for them to turn white.

 The bleaching agent becomes cloudy after reacting..

 



After bleaching, hot boiling water is used to get rid of the smell of bleaching agent. The parts of the birds' nests which cannot be bleached will be taken out.



         

Now it's the time to mould them into shape.




   




After mould them into shapes, they are dried.

 After drying them for one day and one night, the birds' nests are ready.


         

Malaysia and Indonesia produce at least 800-2000kg of Cao Yan and Mao Yan. In these birds' nests, only a small amount is edible (the saliva of the bird), but they are very dirty and almost black in colour. No one would want to consume it. So should we just throw it away and waste it?

No, there is of course a way of turning them into attractive products, which is bleaching. Some suppliers use H2O2 to get rid of the smell of second class birds nest.

H2O2 is a rather poisonous chemical, and it might cause cancer.

Only some food contain small amount of SO2 and SO3 (not more than 0.00000002%). In Japan the amount of SO2 and SO3 in all sorts of food must not exceed 0.00000001.

Before this, the nutritional value in Cao Yan and Mao Yan is already very low. After processing using chemicals, the nutrient in the birds' nests is totally destroyed. Therefore, the nutritional value can be said to be lower than Pek Bok Nee [white fungus]... have you eaten before?

The birds' nests which are bleached have lost its original shape. So, businessmen turn these birds' nests into different kinds of shape. The most common shapes are leaf-shaped, strips and round shape. There are also those who dye the birds nest into yellow/ red colour, and cheat the unknown consumers by selling these birds' nests to them as Xue Yan/Jin.  

The nutritional value of these birds' nest is gone and totally worthless after processing them with lots of chemicals. Do you think that people will still be selling them? Do you still want to buy and consume it?