A Good Reason for Eating Live Frogs

The title of this blog is somewhat deceptive. There really is no good reason to eat live frogs. More on that later.

For now, let’s talk about Traditional Chinese Medicine. I’m referring to the fringe stuff, like eating tiger penis and testicles to treat erectile dysfunction or improve sexual performance. Or that thing where you eat flying squirrel feces to stop bleeding.

I’m a firm “no” on both counts. Mind you, I’m all in on great sexual performance, and I’d prefer not to bleed all over, but there must be better solutions.

Still, there are people who subscribe to all manner of offbeat ways to cure the most ordinary ailments. Recently, an 82-year-old woman from Hangzhou, China, found herself in a shiny new Western-style hospital after swallowing eight live frogs in an attempt to relieve her persistent lower back pain from a herniated disk. Following more folklore than science, she had enlisted her family to catch frogs smaller than the palm of her hand.

You know: eating size.

She downed three frogs immediately after their capture and finished the other five the next day. Not long after swallowing the last one, she was rushed to the hospital with abdominal pain, where doctors quickly determined she had a parasitic infection.

She accepted treatment and was discharged after two weeks. No word on the back pain.

—Mitchell Hegman