There are many things touted as an aphrodisiac. Anything from chocolate to wine and strawberries is known to awaken the sexual senses. These days, men needing a little pick-me-up in the bedroom turn to Viagra, but in China people are paying thousands of dollars for fungus that supposedly offers the same benefits as the popular blue pill.
A fungus, really?
It’s better known throughout Asia by the Tibetan term, yartsa gunbu, which means “summer grass, winter worm.” It translates into caterpillar fungus, and people will pay $50,000 per pound for this rare worm-like fungus according to NPR.
Britt Bunyard, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and editor of Fungi Magazine, explains that this fungi makes its living by getting inside a host insect and ultimately killing and consuming it. People harvest it and eat it for its sexual stimulants. It might sound like an odd way to spice things up in the bedroom, but history is filled with many odd solutions for sexual problems.
How is it harvested?
So where do people actually find this fungus? In the ground. People have learned how to spot the fungus growing and now teams of people harvest it and sell it. “As soon as they see that yartsa gunba is sprouting in these high, high alpine fields, the whole village just empties out,” a reporter wrote after witnessing a harvest. “Everybody climbs up into the mountains and spends pretty much six weeks crawling around looking for the tips of yartsa gunbu.”
With the high price of the fungus, small towns have cashed in on the finger-sized growths. Small, remote villages have pooled the money and invested it into their community.
Will it show up in the U.S.?
Apparently small stores in New York’s Chinatown do sell it, but it has not caught on here and experts don’t anticipate it will. The idea of eating a fungus will probably keep most Americans away. Right now, medications like Viagra and Cialis have the market cornered, but who knows, people have killed over this fungus in other countries.
