Michelle Ye Urges the Public to Not Eat Desert Locusts

Fear and panic in China has been increasing as the number of people infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19) climbs and the death toll increases. To add onto this, a swarm of 360 billion desert locusts are travelling towards Tibet and Yunan.

Desert locusts are one of the most devastating migratory pests in the world as they feed on large qualities of vegetation and can create famine in its wake. According to Wikipedia, a very small, one-square-kilometer locust swarm can eat the same amount of food in one day as about 35,000 people!

Michelle Ye (葉璇) has been following the news of COVID-19 closely and is advocating for the public to stop eating exotic wildlife, as this is purported to be the source of the virus. She also disclosed that she was once forced to eat bamboo rats, bats, along with other exotic wildlife for a variety show. The source of these animals was unknown and there were a few actors that refused to eat it. Those that ended up eating it then accused the others of being unprofessional and arrogant. The production team ended up editing the clips to make it seem like they had eaten the animals and gave them food props to make it more realistic.

She also shared a video posted by Maggie Ip (叶静子), the granddaughter on Ye Jianying (叶剑英), a Chinese communist revolutionary leader and politician. The video was titled “The fate of desert locusts after they arrive in China” and it was actually an edited clip of Michelle’s drama The Ninth Widow <第九个寡妇>. In the clip, Michelle stands in the middle of her farm battling desert locusts and ultimately she gets rid of them by cooking them.

But in reality Michelle does not agree with the idea of eating them. She wrote, “Eating desert locusts is a horrible idea from the past. Now we don’t need to eat these things, we have chicken instead! The other day Chia Tai announced that their company has 400 million chickens. Our whole country has countless chickens and one chicken can eat hundreds of insects!”

Many netizens agreed with Michelle’s comments. Michelle also stressed that The Ninth Widow was set in the past and this was how people dealt with the famine due to the attacks of the locusts. Even though the scene was written very well and the locusts looked appetizing on screen, she had smelled their pungent fumes from their dead bodies and she felt it is her responsibility to inform the public about why they should not be eaten.

On the other hand, China-based Taiwanese singer and comedian Michael Huang (黃安) has a different view on eating desert locusts. He believes that they are nutritious and contain lots of protein, unsaturated fats, calcium, and vitamins A and B. He also shared various recipes on how to cook them and commented, “The desert locusts that are currently harming India, if you come to China we will eat you!”

Source: Sky Post

This article is written by Kiki for JayneStars.com.