Since ancient times, human beings have longed for and admired gold.
The use of gold as food is often a symbol of their own status and status. Many emperors, such as the ancient Egyptian royal family, the medieval European nobles, and the Sui Yang Emperor of the Sui Dynasty in China, have It is honored to be able to enjoy food decorated with gold leaf.
Nowadays, some businesses try to add some gold leaf in order to make the food they sell look more high-end and more classy.
Whether it is chocolate, ice cream, cake, steak, sushi, etc., once put on the coat of gold foil, the original bland food is worth hundreds of times.
This is a bit of a puzzle: didn’t the ancients ever have “suicide by swallowing gold”?
Just like Second Sister You in “A Dream of Red Mansions”, why do modern people dare to, and even respect the use of gold?
(Second Sister You of “A Dream of Red Mansions” in the 87th edition)
Suicide by swallowing gold, does it really exist?
Actually, the phrase “suicide by swallowing gold” is related to ancient medical records.
In the Tang Dynasty medical book “Materia Medica Supplements”, it was recorded: “All kinds of gold are poisonous, and raw gold is poisonous, and medicine people die.”
And similar expressions appear in medical books of different dynasties, which also shows that in the system of traditional Chinese medicine, “gold” is often toxic, so this also makes the ancients generally believe “Swallowing gold” can be fatal.
But in fact, the “gold” recorded in medical books is not the same as the “gold” imagined by the ancients. It is not the “cooked gold” of everyday gold utensils, but a A kind of “living gold”.
Chen Zangqi, a Chinese herbalist in the Tang Dynasty, defined “Shengjin”—--‘”This scripture says that gold is poisonous, and it is wrong. Shengjin and other gold are complete Don’t.”‘
And the well-known medical scientist Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty recorded in the Compendium of Materia Medica: “Poison gold is born gold, and it is delivered to Guangshan stone, red and poisonous. , killing people, practicing more than ten times, the poison is gone.”
In other words, this kind of raw gold refers more to natural gold that has just been mined and has not been smelted.
The reason why this type of gold is poisonous is not that the gold element is poisonous, but that natural gold also contains a large amount of toxic metals such as lead, mercury, but usually after a lot of In the second smelting, these toxic metals are also removed.
Why would someone “suck gold and die”?
In fact, looking through some historical records, there are indeed some cases of ancient people who swallowed gold and died.
For example, during the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Allied Forces, Luo Rongguang, a general of the Qing Dynasty who was guarding the Daku Pass, was worried that he would be held accountable by the court for his defeat, so he chose to “suicide by swallowing gold”.
But since gold is not poisonous, why do people still swallow it and die?
Actually, the “gold to death” method of death is somewhat different from what the general public thinks.
Either swallowing gold is raw gold, in sufficient doses, and you may end up dying from heavy metal poisoning;Either because of swallowing sharp substances such as golden hairpins, the chest cavity, lungs, and stomach were cut, which in turn caused massive bleeding in the body and died.
In addition, if the ingested gold nugget is relatively large, it may fall and compress the intestines, resulting in rupture of the digestive tract, internal bleeding and complications, and eventually death from unbearable pain.
In this case, will eating “golden” food be harmful to the body?
As long as any food is “gold”, its value will rise immediately, and for some high-end diners, it seems that there is no resistance to “gold” food.
However, the reality is that regular consumption of “gold-plated” food is not only good for health, but can even lead to metal poisoning in severe cases.
The reason is that gold foil cannot be digested and absorbed by the stomach and intestines. Once a large amount of gold foil is accumulated in the body, it is easy to induce some diseases.
If only a small amount of gold leaf is eaten, it is not harmful to the body, because the chemical properties of gold leaf are very stable and will not participate in blood circulation.
For people who eat “gold” for a long time, it is easy to cause indigestion, stomach pain and other diseases.
And gold foil is a metal element, which can easily lead to metal poisoning, such as dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, etc.
As the symptoms of poisoning continue to worsen, nerve tissue disorders will also occur, which will lead to severe damage to the stomach, liver and kidneys, and will also be a great threat to life.
For this reason, the misuse of gold foil has also attracted the attention of relevant departments.
The State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Health and Health Commission, and the General Administration of Customs have jointly stopped “gold foil food” as early as 2022, on the one hand to avoid potential food safety hazards, and on the other hand On the one hand, this extravagant trend needs to be curbed.
Knowing that this thing has no nutritional value, for the so-called comparison, you still need to use your own body to take risks. Is this really cost-effective?
References:
[1] Du Weigan. “wearing gold and silver” for food may face legal sanctions [N]. Nanfang Daily, 2022-03-15(A11).
【2】Gold foil into wine leads to controversy, “paper drunk gold fans” is not desirable[J].Quality and Certification, 2015(03):19.