Can Leeches Be Eaten? An Article to Understand the Food Safety of Leeches

The scientific name of the leech is Hirudo, and its medicinal value is quite prominent; many medical experts have conducted related research on it. So can leeches be eaten?

1. Can Leeches Be Eaten

Leeches cannot be eaten. Leeches are toxic and need to go through specialized processing before being made into Chinese medicinal materials. In daily life, leeches must not be eaten casually, as doing so will harm the body.

2. Methods for Catching Leeches

① In water areas such as rice paddies, ponds and canals, they can be caught whether by day or by night. Leeches are very sensitive to movement in the water; just stir the water a few times with a dip net, and the leeches will swim out from the mud and among the water plants, at which point you can take the opportunity to catch them with the dip net.

② Trap them with pig blood. First tie dry rice straw into a straw bundle that is tight at both ends and loose in the middle, then inject raw pig blood (0.5 kg per mu of field) into the bundle, and place it horizontally at the water inlet of the field. The inflow should not be too large; generally it is best if the water can slowly flow into the field through the straw bundle. Let the water slowly wash the pig blood into threads that drift and spread across the whole field, using the fishy smell of the blood to lure the leeches in the field into the straw bundle to suck the pig blood that has not yet flowed out. Once the leeches are full and their bodies swell up, it becomes very hard for them to crawl out again. Four to five hours after placing the straw bundle, you can take it out and collect the leeches. If there is no raw pig blood, blood from poultry and livestock such as chickens, ducks and geese can be used instead, and the same effect can be achieved.

That is all for today's summary and compilation by Tuliu.com on questions related to leeches; we hope this article is helpful to you.