Bizarre, International, Society

No Yolk: Boy Eggs in China Rely on Real Boys

After reading this on Reddit, I had to share but you may want to get through your breakfast first. I have been repeatedly to China and have had some exotic foods (including hundred-year-old eggs) but I have never run into tong zi dan (童子蛋), or “Boy Egg.” Known also as “Virgin Eggs,” the eggs are the official food of Dongyang, China and are made by steaming them in the urine of young boys.

Boy eggs are sold on street corners throughout the city. How do they get their supply of boy urine? As shown in these pictures, schools required boys below the age of 10 to pee in public buckets that are collected at the end of the day. They are asked not to use the buckets if they are feeling poorly. I wonder if true connoisseurs can tell the difference and object, “hey, this tastes like pubescent urine!”

This is even a greater disappointment than when I found out that Scotch eggs are not actually cooked in Scotch. At least the Chinese rely on real boys for Boy Eggs.

The key is urine from prepubescent boys. The cost is 1.50 yuan (23 cents). They are supposed to give you added energy in the spring and prevent heat stroke in the summer. Except for those tourists who have a stroke after being told that their eggs at breakfast were steamed in boy urine.

Source: Investor Spot

22 thoughts on “No Yolk: Boy Eggs in China Rely on Real Boys”

  1. just the thing to go with that coffee that runs through a marmoset first

  2. “Now I’m wondering what they do with all those fetuses.”

    I know where the fetuses are …

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn7_Nvwdfwg&w=640&h=390]

  3. Tootles sez, “Now I’m wondering what they do with all those fetuses.”

    I don’t know for sure, Tootles, but if I were the Chinese, I’d be saving them to throw at busy-body Fundies who think they have the right to force their religious beliefs on others.

    Or maybe a stir-fry.

    But most likely, they dispose of them like the dispose of all their medical waste: by dumping it in a river, burning it, or burying it.

    You racist nitwit.

  4. anon nurse,

    It came out the wrong way…
    If you know what I mean.

  9. I think someone in Florida has been visiting China too much! I am also shocked that the Chinese would discriminate against girl eggs!

  10. Why did my parents study biology in college, why did they share their understanding of biology with me, such that I ended up with bioengineering degrees?

    Urine, in people without urinary tract disease, is a cellular filtrate which is remarkably pathogen-free, and is one of the least pathogen-contaminated fluids readily available to humans.

    There are tales of some (primitive culture – if that is not pejorative) folks using urine for hair-washing because of its freedom from infections pathogens.

    The solutes in urine will somewhat raise the boiling point, such that the steam rising from the boiling process will be slightly superheated as compared with boiling solute-free water.

    If eggs are cooked in steam from boiling urine, eggshells are remarkably capable of keeping preventing almost anything other than gases (like oxygen and carbon dioxide?) from crossing the shell and associated membranes.

    There is a serious (or serous?) problem, though? Left out in buckets, what keeps the urine from becoming contaminated with pathogens while it is so stored?

    Then there is the other thread regarding Florida Fertilizer?

  12. Reminder to self: Avoid Tootie. 🙂 (Wasn’t it Frank Schaeffer who coined the phrase “fifth column of insanity”…)

  13. “that this tastes like pubescent urine!”

    First good laugh of the day … thanks, Professor!

  19. Uggh.

    Now I’m wondering what they do with all those fetuses.

  20. Since its ok to drip coffee to the last crap…. at 3k a pound….what this going for…..

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