"It's expensive, at least the elders know how happy they are."
After struggling for nearly a week, Xu Jin (pseudonym), a post-90s generation, finally bought a Mother's Day gift for his mother and mother-in-law: bird's nest.
Maybe it's because I've seen too many advertisements for the beautiful woman holding bird's nest in the elevator, maybe it's because the video of the graceful aunt wearing a cheongsam and eating bird's nest in the short video has been brushed too much, Xu Jin found that after she was "middle-aged", she was planted with bird's nest unconsciously, and she even found that her 98-year-old little sister who just came to her office hoarded a lot of bird's nest in the company's refrigerator, and the first thing she did at work was to open a can calmly.
On the eve of Mother's Day this year, when choosing gifts for her mother and mother-in-law, she also thought of bird's nest for the first time. Although I also muttered in my heart, "Is it an IQ tax", but in the end I still paid for it, spending nearly 4,000 yuan to buy two low-sugar bird's nest gift boxes of a certain brand.
And Xu Jin is far from the only one who chooses to become a consumer of bird's nest.
Bird's nest is selling out
is different from Xu Jin's self-ridicule that "people only start to buy bird's nest when they reach middle age, and their blood awakens before they start to buy bird's nest", among the people who buy bird's nest, middle-aged people are still the main force, but there are also young people.
According to the "2021-2022 Bird's Nest Industry White Paper" released by the National Bird's Nest Committee, the bird's nest consumer group is dominated by women aged 20~50 in third-tier cities and above, of which 31.29% are 18~30 years old and 46.43% are 30~40 years old.
The reason why consumers buy bird's nest is that about 40% is for their own use, and about 60% is for gifts. This also means that almost every holiday is the time for bird's nest to "make a fortune".
For example, the first quarter of 2024, which has both Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day. According to Zhongkang Yunling data, in the first quarter of this year, the sales volume of bird's nest increased by 17.6% month-on-month, and the demand increased by 44.7%.
JD Health's nutrition and health care consumption data shows that on the eve of Valentine's Day, the turnover of bird's nest category increased by more than 70% year-on-year. Particularly outstanding are instant bird's nest, freshly stewed bird's nest and other beautifully packaged bird's nest products with their own gift-giving attributes, with an overall turnover of 88% year-on-year.
This year's Mother's Day, bird's nest is also not absent.
According to the "Mother's Day Consumption Observation" released by the Jingdong Consumer and Industrial Development Research Institute, on the eve of Mother's Day, traditional health products have become a popular choice for gifts, among which the turnover of freshly stewed bird's nest has increased by more than 40% year-on-year.
Of course, the "popularity" of bird's nest did not start this year.
In 2020, bird's nest accounted for half of the sales of traditional tonics. Tmall Double 11 traditional tonic pre-sale list TOP10, bird's nest brands account for half; Suning Double 11 bird's nest increased by 2000% year-on-year; JD.com's bird's nest sales have increased 30 times in five years.
It is worth mentioning that at present, the mainland is the world's largest consumer market for bird's nest products, and the mainland's bird's nest mainly relies on imports, and the bird's nest import industry is also "bigger and bigger" by consumers.
According to data from China's bird's nest traceability management service platform, the import volume of edible bird's nest included in CAIQ traceability in 2023 will be 557.1 tons, an increase of 179 times compared with 3.1 tons in 2014.
Source: "2023 Bird's Nest Traceability Report"
The problem is that the price of bird's nest is not cheap, it can even be said to be expensive, searching for bird's nest on Jingdong, the top sales of several bird's nest products range from 30~60 yuan per bottle, if you want to eat it for a long time, it is really a lot of money.
So why are people willing to pay for it?
IQ tax or value for money?
The so-called bird's nest is mainly a kind of colloidal saliva secreted from the mouth when swiftlets build their nests. It is about 50% protein, 30% carbohydrates, 10% impurities or minerals in the dry state, and contains another substance called sialic acid.
However, according to the popular science of medical bloggers "Doctor Lilac" and "Six Floors", the protein in bird's nest cannot provide nutrients in accordance with the proportion required by the human body, and the content of amino acids is also low. It is not as good as eating eggs, pork, soybeans, and milk.
Many merchants claim that sialic acid, a key nutrient in bird's nest, can enhance immunity, but in fact, all mammals, including humans, are able to synthesize sialic acid from the liver on their own, and it is also found in milk, eggs and cheese.
Carbohydrates are even less worth mentioning, they mainly provide energy to the human body, simply put, they can fight hunger. Instead of eating bird's nest to supplement carbohydrates, it is better to nibble on two large steamed buns.
So, what about the blood bird's nest, which is considered more precious by many?
Qian Cheng, a master of food processing engineering, told an interesting report that in extreme and occasional cases, the nests built by swiftlets in caves will be dyed with different colors due to chemical reactions. The most precious of these is the red blood bird's nest, which has nothing to do with blood, but is only the result of a chemical reaction. "For the sake of profit, some merchants have made up a set of stories about 'blood swallows are made of swiftlets vomiting blood'."
Qian Cheng also bluntly said that the health care effect of bird's nest advertised by merchants is not supported by actual scientific evidence. Moreover, bird's nest also has great food safety risks, such as heavy metal contamination, allergy risk, etc.
However, although many people intellectually know that bird's nest may have doubtful effects, they still can't stand the overwhelming advertising and the living cases around them.
The skin of the beauties in the bird's nest advertisement can be broken by blowing
36-year-old Zhou Nan (pseudonym) "fell" on Women's Day last year. After her 35th birthday, she fell into age anxiety and appearance anxiety, and finally decided to try bird's nest, because "I have friends around me who have been eating it, and she is really in good shape, and she looks like her whole person is not the same." ”
However, is the so-called "effect" of bird's nest really the credit of bird's nest?
In fact, bird's nest may be a superficial phenomenon, or it may be a series of factors such as the person who buys bird's nest has good economic conditions, cares more for himself, and has a good mentality.
Then there is the survivorship bias effect. Just like whenever it comes to "eating bird's nest during pregnancy, the baby has white skin", someone must hold the white fat boy and show up. In other words, most of what we hear is "positive cases". But in fact, skin color is mainly influenced by genetic factors.
Zhu Yi, an associate professor at China Agricultural University, once said that the efficacy of the active ingredients in bird's nest is still at the level of animal experiments, and the benefits to humans are more at the psychological and social levels.
The greatest effect of eating bird's nest may be as Dr. Trudeau's famous epitaph reads: "Occasionally healed, often relieved, always comforted".
Bird's nest chaos: the more you eat, the worse your body gets?
The health effect has yet to be verified, and it is only the most insignificant "feature" of bird's nest.
If it is a "wild" bird's nest from unknown sources, harmful processing or even counterfeiting, it is likely to harm the human body.
Qian Cheng said that the illegal methods in the process of bird's nest processing can be said to be endless, from sulfur smoking, to glue brushing and shaping, to hydrogen peroxide impurities and so on, there are many patterns. Many people think that blood bird's nest with high nutritional value is even more "dangerous" - blood bird's nest is extremely rare in its natural state, so unscrupulous merchants directly smoke bird's nest with nitrite and dye the white bird's nest red. The nitrite content of the blood bird's nest made in this way greatly exceeds the standard.
"If you eat too much of this kind of blood bird's nest with excessive nitrite content, it may lead to acute poisoning." Qian Cheng said.
In May 2020, Guangzhou Customs smashed 7 criminal gangs smuggling bird's nest and verified about 19 tons of smuggled bird's nest, with a preliminary estimate of the value of the case reaching 133 million yuan
After the occurrence of the "fake blood bird's nest incident", the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine signed protocols with Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand on the inspection and quarantine and sanitary conditions of imported bird's nest products. Each regular imported bird's nest should be affixed with a traceability code.
Regular imported bird's nests have a separate traceability code, and you can scan the code to know all the information of imported bird's nests from origin to sales|Source: Zhongxin Gallery
Scan the traceability code to know whether the imported bird's nest you bought from Malaysia/Indonesia/Thailand is a serious product or a black one.
"Perfect Marketing" That Can't Be Avoided
Since it is possible that it is an "IQ tax", why not buy it?
It's easier said than done, but there's no way, merchants are too good at marketing.
Many people's initial perception of bird's nest originated from the concubines in the court drama who ate it with their orchid fingers cocked, noble and graceful. In reality, bird's nest is indeed a royal product in the palace, because rare things are expensive. Emperor Qianlong had to drink stewed bird's nest with rock sugar in the morning, and bird's nest was also a frequent visitor in the imperial diet.
Bird's nest is eaten by rich people, which is the first impression many people have of it.
In the 80~90s of the 20th century, the bird's nest brand sponsored many Hong Kong actresses. In recent years, bird's nest advertisements have also invited Gong Li, Carina Lau, Lin Chiling, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Shu, Liu Tao and other beauties to sit in charge.
Bird's nest is eaten by beautiful women, which is a second impression of it.
Although I know that they have become spokespersons because of their beauty, not because they have become beauties because they eat bird's nest, over time, the concepts of "beautiful women eat bird's nest" and "eating bird's nest can be a beauty" began to be cleverly confused.
Seeing them open the delicate small glass bottle with their slender jade hands, and scoop out a small piece of crystal clear bird's nest with a small golden spoon, their red lips opened lightly, tasted it carefully, and smiled...... This is exactly the life that many people aspire to.
The appearance of the concubine Niangniang, the rich wife and the female celebrity eating bird's nest elegantly has subtly left an inherent impression in the hearts of consumers: eating bird's nest = beauty + wealth......
And those who eat bird's nest, do they really want to eat bird's nest, or fully believe in the efficacy of bird's nest?
The answer is not necessarily. Compared with really wanting to eat bird's nest, how many people just want to use it to relieve "aging anxiety" and keep up with the "health trend". For wealthy people, bird's nest is only a small piece of the puzzle in their eternal youth.
For more ordinary consumers, in some special scenarios, such as when visiting elders, the other party hints that "the old sisters around me are eating bird's nest recently", then bird's nest is not only food, but the glue of interpersonal relationships.
Source: China News Weekly