Swallow Birds Nest – The Most Expensive Local Ingredient?

I always knew that the limestone mountains and cliffs in Northern Palawan were the home to swiftlets (collocalia whiteheadi) or birds that made their nests that are unfortunately (for the birds), a delicacy for mainly Chinese diners. On a trip to El Nido two years ago, I was told that the name El Nido meant Bird’s Nest… At any rate, I was under the mistaken impression until recently that you had to scale the razor sharp cliffs to find little crevices where the birds would nest…it turns out the nests are mostly in bigger, darker, slippery caves instead, not on the cliff faces. This post is something the Food Gods absolutely divined, for how on earth could I have chanced upon a native who would not only give me a crash course in bird’s nest, but also happen to have a few on hand for me to photograph?! While on the fantastic small strip of sand at Banol Beach, and burning up in the hot sun, an older lady approached to collect the “fee” for using the beach…after we paid, she sat down in the hut to avoid the sun we started to chit-chat…

Swallow Birds Nest – The Most Expensive Local Ingredient?

Two views of the material that makes the Swallow Birds Nest

Turns out she is a Tagbanuan, and has lived on the island since birth as have her forefathers and ancestors… She explained that there used to be so nest2much more Swallow Birds Nest in the mountains but that the supply had rapidly declined. When pressed for her view of the situation, Manang Herminia Aguilar believed the culprit is cyanide fishing. She felt that the birds, called Balinsasayaw locally, which she said “ate” the bubbles on the surface of the sea, which were contaminated with traces of cyanide (which is used on fish and which kill off coral) and the result was the poisoning of the birds. Some research suggests two views of the material that makes the Swallow Birds Nest. One view is that the birds eat seaweed such as agar-agar and regurgitate this when they get back to their nests as they build them. Another view is that they simply use their saliva. At any rate, the “prized” delicacy is reputed to be good for one’s blood circulation or other medical rationale, so it is highly sought after. Of course my suggestion that natives simply stripping the caves of all nests might lead to a lack of bedding for new born chicks wasn’t considered a reasonable explanation. It seems they are supposed to limit their collection of nests to only January to April, though everyone says that rule is flaunted…
After several minutes of discussion, I asked her if I could find some Swallow Birds Nest to photograph for this blog and lo and behold, she whips out these two small bundles from her cloth bag. Carefully wrapped in a soft cloth, she gently took them out to show me. She nest3explained that many people had died over the years trying to harvest these nests as the conditions in the caves are treacherous. She pointed out that she had two bundles classified by quality. The first bundle of noticeably whiter nests was Class A and was sold to traders from Manila for a whopping, hold your seats, PHP200,000 a KILO!!! Omigod is all I could think. This little bundle was about 20 grams or PHP4,000 pesos worth! The second bundle was Class C because of its color and the foreign matter embedded in the nests, this would retail for a much less shocking PHP120,000 a kilo and her bundle here of roughly 25 grams would garner PHP3,000 from the traders. So, in the photos here are roughly PHP7,000 pesos worth of dried saliva; now if only dried buggers were so highly valued as a flavoring agent for some special dish…ugh, that was a gross thought Marketman!

I must end this post with a comment that I will never ever again eat Swallow Birds Nest.

Sensitive to light, Manang Herminia did not want these freshly harvested nests to be exposed to light as they would discolor and as soon as I clicked my photos, nest4she wrapped them back up again. And for those of you impressed by numbers, my rapid calculations place these nests among the MOST EXPENSIVE INGREDIENTS on the planet, period! The finest beluga caviar at its source in Kazakhstan might run you just USD 50 cents a gram (USD500 a kilo at the source, as much as USD5,000 by the time it reaches the West), while the best saffron, often touted as the most expensive spice on the planet, might run about USD1 per gram at the source in Iran or elsewhere, and the finest truffles may range from USD2-4 per gram at their source in Italy or France. These nests, of top quality will already command USD4-5 per gram right at the foot of the mountains from which they were collected…shocking! However, I must end this post with a comment that I will never ever again eat Swallow Birds Nest. The swiftlets are endangered, and the thought of robbing them of their cozy nests is not something I can stomach. The same feeling goes for Shark’s fin soup, as I have seen bulk processors of this delicacy in Indonesia and that experience also meant I cannot, in all conscience, eat a bowl of gelatinous, stringy shark’s fin. And since the sturgeon that yields beluga caviar is also now on the endangered species list, I will refrain from consuming any of that as well (not that I get a chance to do that too often at all). While I learned a lot from Manang Herminia, I learned more the importance of preserving the dwindling swiftlets…

A rare delicacy hard to sell

Ou Seathong sells one of the most expensive foods in the world: Swallow Birds Nest. At her shop on Street 182 in Phnom Penh, she sorts edible Swallow Birds Nest on the shelves. Hundreds of years old, the Chinese delicacy is made of the congealed saliva of Asian Swallow Birds Nest.

Business had been good, with Chinese tourists coming to her shop and buying the nests as souvenirs before going home. But a year ago, the Chinese government put a spoke in her wheel – a ban on imports of Cambodian Swallow Birds Nest.
“My clients, the majority of them, came from China,” she said. “Commonly, in Cambodia there are not many people who know about Swallow Birds Nest, but it is well-known in China and Vietnam,” she said.
“Now Chinese authorities banned the import and it is difficult to find a market.”
It’s still some of the most expensive spit around, but the ban has caused prices to drop, with Cambodian Swallow Birds Nest costing around $1,500, and imports from Malaysia being worth up to $2,000 per kilogram. In the Chinese tourist heyday, the Cambodian nests went for around $2,200 per kilogram.
Processed into food or beverages, the white nests and red nests are supposedly rich in nutrients and believed to have health benefits.
“The majority of my clients are pregnant women and elderly who need more nutrition,” Seathong said.
She added that a Swallow Birds Nest can last for up to four years before losing quality if preserved well.

Ou Seathong at her Phnom Penh shop where she sells edible bird saliva, considered a delicacy in Cambodia, China and Vietnam. The product, however, isn’t selling well since China banned imports last year. Pha Lina

Before operating the shop, around seven or eight years ago, she bought some nests from other local raisers and some which were imported from Malaysia.
The motivation for Seathong to start the business stemmed from her Chinese parents, who used to cook food from the nests when she was young. At the time, prices soared to $5,000 per kilogram.
But following her decision to start a shop, more and more people built houses for birds to collect their nests, and prices plummeted before being resuscitated by the Chinese tourists.
She said that even today, the number of bird-nest raisers is increasing, along the coastline, National Road 5 as well as in Phnom Penh. Generally, however, the Swallow Birds Nests collected in coastal areas are of better quality.
Seathong’s relatives live in Kampot and have three houses for birds to live in and make nests. They collect about eight kilograms for three months, and get the remaining supplies from Koh Kong and Preah Sihanouk provinces.
Because of the difficulties she faces today, Seathong said she does not intend to operate a processing factory for producing beverages from the nests because it’s expensive.
“It is high-class product,” she said. “Right now it is difficult to sell.”

Big business in Swallow Birds Nest in Myanmar seaside town

The cries of amorous Swallow Birds Nest echo around the dark room, an unlikely gold mine for traders in southern Myanmar, who are cashing in on the rising demand for the edible nests from China’s growing middle class.
Dozens of buildings dedicated to the tiny birds have sprung up around the seaside town of Bokpyin in recent years, their grey concrete structures towering over the humbler wood and brick homes of the town’s human inhabitants.
Every morning and evening, the air is filled with high-pitched twitterings blasting from loudspeakers, that draw thousands of the swallow-like birds home to roost.
Edible Swallow Birds Nests have become one of the main industries in the town, which is traditionally known for producing betel nut (areca nut), a chewable stimulant, as well as rubber and palm oil.
Traders can charge around US$2,000 (RM8,591) a viss (equivalent to 1.63kg) for the tiny nests – more than the average person in Myanmar earns in a year.
“We started making man-made Swallow Birds Nest (houses) 10 years ago,” said Paing Set Aung, who owns one of the buildings where hundreds of Swallow Birds Nest make their homes in the rafters.
“Initially, there was a house where the birds came to roost by themselves. After that, people started to construct man-made bird houses.”
Most of the tiny white nests, which are made from solidified bird spit, are sold to neighbouring China.
Long considered the reserve of the country’s wealthy elite – who ate them at lavish banquets – they are increasingly in demand from middle-class consumers.
Today, the global edible Swallow Birds Nest industry is estimated to be worth US$5bil (RM21.5bil), most of it produced in South-East Asia.
Myanmar’s exports have surged since 2011 – the year the former junta handed over power to a quasi-civilian government.
“Swallow Birds Nest are one of the main businesses in Bokpyin,” said local Lin Aung, who built his first house five years ago and is now on his third.
“China is the top buyer of Swallow Birds Nest here.”

‘Caviar of the East’

Once across the border, the nests are transformed into one of the most expensive foods in the world.
When boiled in water, they dissolve into a gelatinous gloop which is then made into desserts, or drunk as a soup or a tonic that is said to prolong life and improve strength.
There is little peer-reviewed scientific data showing that nests have proven medicinal properties. Nutritional studies have shown the saliva to be mainly made up of protein, followed by carbohydrates.
In Shanghai, restaurants sell this “the caviar of the East”, as it is known, for hundreds of dollars a bowl.
Many of them cater specifically to women, who believe the nests can help smooth the complexion and make them look younger.
The tonic is also said to help during pregnancy – one of Shanghai’s high-end spas solely for mothers-to-be even has its own restaurant, and sells gift bags for as much as RMB3,900 (RM2,431).
Shoppers can also order the products online, including candied Swallow Birds Nests from Myanmar to be eaten as sweets.
“In China, the Swallow Birds Nest has been a really famous and much-loved traditional tonic since ancient times,” Zhang Yi told AFP, speaking from her NestCha restaurant.
“It is mild and a little sweet. It is good for women, the elderly, children and men.”

Growing industry

These luxury products are a far cry from the nests’ humble beginnings on the islands of Myanmar’s southern archipelago.
To begin with, they were harvested on the region’s many islands by daring climbers, who risked life and limb scaling treacherous cliffs without any safety equipment.
For years, the industry was dominated by the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (Umehl), a sprawling conglomerate controlled by the military elites that ran Myanmar for half a century.
But, as in much of South-East Asia, production has increasingly moved into urban centres.
Locals in the southern city of Myeik started building houses to attract the birds decades ago; later, production spread to Bokpyin and nearby Kawthaung.
There are now more than 130 houses devoted to the Swallow Birds Nest dotted around the region, according to state media.
Competition for space in Bokpyin between Swallow Birds Nest producers and tourism developers has seen land prices surge to as high as US$75,000 (RM322,000) a plot in the downtown area – on par with parts of the commercial capital Yangon.
Nests are normally harvested three or four times a year, but traders can collect them as often as once a month if they are in need of cash.
Producer Aung Kyaw Moe said that because the swiftlet populations naturally increase as the birds become accustomed to their homes, the industry will only grow in the coming years.
“They are like humans, because they come and live here after they get to know the place,” he told AFP, standing next to his tall wooden bird house in Myeik. — AFP/Athens Zaw Zaw & Matthew Smith

Why Choose Our Bird's Nest?

" We do only Produce good products to the market.

Our Swallow Birds Nest is Clean, Good Shape and No Chemical .

100% pure hand picked and 101% NO CHEMICAL. "

One problem is, all people are saying the same thing about the Quality of their Swallow Birds Nests. All are saying that Swallow Birds Nest is 98% clean, in good shape, and 101% no chemical.. My suggestion is, Lab it and you will know the lab report of our Swallow Birds Nests.

Here is some of Our answers for the above "Why Choose Our Swallow Birds Nest?"

Why Choose Our Swallow Birds Nest?

• We do have more than 15 years experience in Swallow Birds Nest market, started 1998.
• We do have Double Solid "Preparation Division Teams", to ensure our Workers have the same type of Nests everyday, The reason is to maintain and improving Workers' skills as they are having the same type of nest every days.
• Only Good Quality and Middle Quality raw nests materials that to we process. Lower grade raw material nests, we do produce it as type Broken Nests, To Ensure a stable Production Quality of our Swallow Birds Nests.
• Our raw material Swallow Birds Nest do get heated about 3 seconds into temperature not less than 70 degree Celcius.
• This process is to low down the nitrates level to not more than 5 ppm and also kill most of the germs inside the Swallow Birds Nest. (China Government's Requirement is 30 ppm for nitrate)
• Before Our Swallow Birds Nest can be send out to our Partners, all Swallow Birds Nest have to passed Our "Double Quality Control Departments." Not Pass QC nest will not be send out. It is will be reprocess again and we grade it as broken nest.
• We are using clean drinking water for cleaning our Swallow Birds Nest.
• We do build our own Water Systems with lots of water filters, and lots of UV lights.
• We can assure our factory water is clean and no germs inside the water
• Our commitments is that our Swallow Birds Nest is must 98% clean from impurities ( Can be cooked directly )
• We do grade our Nests properly such as for sizes and colors.
• We do maintain to have a very stable and increasing productions and Quality of our Swallow Birds Nest too.
• We do have not less than 700 workers with capacity up to 2.000 kg/ month.
• Famous Big Brand Swallow Birds Nest Companies do Accept the Quality of Our Swallow Birds Nests.
* The most important point is that :

WE DO CHERISH LONG-TERM BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP!

Welcome to Indonesia's Swallow Birds Nest factory town

The tiny port of Kumai on the southern tip of Indonesian Borneo is a burgeoning trade centre in one of the world's most valuable animal products - the nests used for Swallow Birds Nest.

Drab concrete buildings have sprouted up all across Kumai, towering above the traditional low-rise shop-houses.
The buildings have no windows - instead they have many tiny holes. They are in fact birdhouses, or more accurately, Swallow Birds Nest factories.
Kumai's human population is about 20,000. Its population of swiftlets - the tiny birds whose nests are so valuable to the Chinese - must be 10 times that number.
They cover the sky, thrashing about and letting out screeches that are audible in every part of town.
The explosion in the bird population has come as an irritation to some in Kumai.
"The Chinese started building birdhouses here about 10 years ago," says a local park ranger.
"At first it was fine, but now it's taking over the whole town. The people don't have much of a say. Local politicians just let it happen." 

Welcome to Indonesia's swallow birds nest factory town

Tasteless, but wholesome

The edible nests, which the birds make from their saliva, have been a part of Chinese cookery for more than 1,000 years.
They can be used in sweet or savoury dishes.
Food writer and broadcaster Ching-He Huang says one way of preparing the nests is to slow cook them with rock sugar, allowing them to take on the flavours of other ingredients.
But she explains that the nests are revered for their reputed medicinal benefits and cultural importance rather than their flavour.
"Many Chinese women I know have it because the gelatinous texture of the Swallow Birds Nest is said to be very good for maintaining youth - it's thought to help collagen production," she says.
"The sweet version is delicate. It's like drinking a thick jelly-like soup. It can be served as a dessert or on its own."
The dark damp caves of South East Asia's tropical regions provide the natural habitat for the swiftlets.
Indonesia has many such caves, and has a long history in the Swallow Birds Nest trade. As far back as the 17th Century there are records of the trade in the archipelago.
For most of that time, the nests were collected from caves by skilled climbers using flimsy bamboo trellises.

Lucky charms

According to local legend, the practice of farming the birds in houses grew up accidentally several generations ago, when a local landowner in Sedayu, in East Java, left his house to go on the Hajj pilgrimage, says Ani Mardiastuti, from Bogor Agricultural University.
"He went to Hajj for several months, and some of his rooms were closed. When he came back from Hajj, he found that the swiftlets had been using his rooms for nesting," she says.
"Later on, he imitated the condition of the swiftlet room in other rooms, and he succeeded, so inventing the technique to farm the swiftlet."
Bird farmers are still notoriously secretive about how they attract the animals - but part of the method appears to be playing recordings of the swiftlets' song.
Reports abound of industrious Indonesians trying anything from lucky charms to casting spells in an effort to lure the birds into their buildings.

From caves, to cities

But for much of the 20th Century the trade was relatively small, and was dominated by traditional nest collectors.
China's authoritarian Communist ruler Mao Zedong denounced the soup as a decadent luxury, so almost the entire world market was in Hong Kong.
The soup only started to regain popularity on the mainland during the 1990s, but experts say it has now overtaken Hong Kong as Indonesia's main export market.
As demand has risen, concrete birdhouses have been erected throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and most recently Cambodia.
The birds have willingly moved to the cities, and the high-rise accommodation provided for them, complete with birdsong on the CD player.
Some environmentalists have warned that other species of swiftlets with less desirable nests may suffer, and have also expressed concern that the industry is entirely unregulated.
But for the swiftlets with edible nests (known as white-nest swiftlets), the industry's development is no bad thing, says Richard Thomas from the Oriental Bird Club.
"A lot of new habitats and breeding areas have been created, and there seems to be a good understanding that if you take the nests away too often, the birds will not build new ones," he says.
"Also, as the industry moves more into the cities and away from the caves, it allows the other bird populations to live undisturbed in their natural habitats."
The surge in demand has forced the prices up from about $400 (£250) a kilo (the equivalent of about 120 nests) in the mid-1990s to $3,000 a kilo for the highest quality nests on today's market.
Indonesia reportedly made $226m in 2009 from the industry, and dominates the world market.
So the birds are happy, Chinese foodies are happy, and most importantly, the taxman is happy. The complaints of locals may just be drowned out for the time being.

Chinese Swallow Birds Nest is one bizarrely cool dish to get tweeting about

Recipe

Cooking Time 0-30 minutes
Number of Ingredients 0-5

The Swallow Birds Nest is the word

Swallow Birds Nest may sound like a crazy Chinese urban legend of a dish, you know, one so bonkers it can’t be real or it’s just a funny lost-in-translation name, but the delicacy is indeed an authentic one. Rather from being made from twigs and bits of moss, they’re made from the hardened saliva from swiftlet nests and dissolved in a broth.
Head to SeeWoo or Royal Dragon to get your bowl of delicious Swallow Birds Nest
If that still doesn’t sound too appetising, don’t worry, today they’re harvested entirely for human consumption and super-high in minerals like calcium, magnesium and potassium. Believed to enhance the immune system, aid digestion and improve libido Swallow Birds Nest has been keeping the Chinese healthy (and horny) since 500 AD during the Tang dynasty. A dish for the elite, it was only imperial nobility who dined on the unique broth. According to legend it was the great admiral Cheng Ho who bought the Swallow Birds Nest to Southeast Asia for the Chinese Emperor.
These days, whilst still a rare delicacy, Swallow Birds Nest is easily accessible for mere mortals. In Chinatown you can find the sacred dish at Gerrard Street’s Royal Dragon or if you want to prepare it at home, dried nests can be bought from SeeWoo supermarket on Lisle Street.
Here’s how to make your Swallow Birds Nest.

Chinese swallow birds nest is one bizarrely cool dish to get tweeting about

METHOD:

• Soak the Swallow Birds Nest for 6 hours or leave overnight until it has softened and expanded
• Remove and chop into portions, allocate 15g per person
• Add the portions to the chicken stock with the ginger and oil and stew for 20 minutes over heat until the nests have dissolved
• Add seasoning or adjust stock levels to taste then it’ll be ready to serve!

Swallow Birds Nest – Would You Eat This Cure-All Swiftlet Saliva?

The glitz, glamour, and shiny metal things, makes you feel more like you’re in a casino than a Bangkok restaurant. And with all the casing passing through the business, it might not be so different from a casino anyway.

Let me make the Swallow Birds Nest story short for you:

Little birds, tiny swiftlets to be more precise, build nests high up in caves near the sea. The nests are crafted with swiftlet saliva (that sometimes comes with little extra goodies like sticks and feathers), that’s discharged into a lattice weave, and then dries.
It takes weeks, but finally the proud result is a little concave, sort of a quarter of a sphere, miniature dish of bird saliva, or Swallow Birds Nest.
The Swallow Birds Nest then goes on to sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a few nests, depending on the many varieties and qualities.
Thailand, with its southern cliffs on the ocean, happens to be a pretty famous place for harvesting Swallow Birds Nest. So in that regard, Bangkok is one of the cheapest places to sample Swallow Birds Nest (at least a whole lot cheaper than in Hong Kong or New York City).
I won’t go into all the details, but eating Swallow Birds Nest is pretty much supposed to be a cure-all.
Burapa Swallow Birds Nest (บูรพารังนก เยาวราช) is a well known spot for a dose of Swallow Birds Nest (รังนก) in Chinatown Bangkok.
So I ordered the 2,000 THB per bowl of Swallow Birds Nest (รังนก). NOT. I got the second cheapest one available: 300 THB per bowl.
It came in a small white soup bowl, along with gingko nuts, a bit of high quality honey, and a soft boiled egg.
The Swallow Birds Nest (รังนก) is pretty much prepared just by adding hot water to the Swallow Birds Nest, bring it back to life from being hardened sticky saliva.
I’m hardly an expert at bird nesting, but I guess what you’re supposed to do is crack the egg into the soup before digging in.

Swallow Birds Nest – Would You Eat This Cure-All Swiftlet Saliva?

How does it taste?

Actually it doesn’t really taste all that much, but if it’s alright for me to say, it does sort of taste, birdy.
The soup is sort of thick and a little slimy. And within the soup are little chunks of things that are gelatin like, but really don’t have much flavor. Occasionally you’ll get a little feather in your spoon!
After slurping down your slimy bowl of Swallow Birds Nest (รังนก), you’ll then have the opportunity to spend your life savings on a jar or box to take home.
Prices vary greatly, but I do know that you might need to hit the casino jackpot before you purchase some of the prize stock at Burapa.

How Swallow Birds Nest Became One Of The World's Most Extreme Foods

Deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia lies a complex labyrinth of near impenetrable caves. Ranging in size from little more than holes to colossal cathedrals of stone, these caverns are home to a wealth of creatures that call the rocky fortresses home. For people to hunt here takes not only bravery, but prodigious skill. Operating in near darkness and using the most rudimentary of tools, these environments are among the most dangerous working conditions found anywhere on earth. Yet, every day, thousands of people risk their lives here to fill the demand for one of the world’s most extreme foods.

In caves such as Gomantang and Niah in Borneo and on the aptly named Swallow Birds Nest Island in Thailand, hunters risk life and limb to harvest the nests of the critically endangered cave swiftlet. Using a lattice of rickety bamboo ladders and rope pulleys, locals remove the cup-shaped deposits stuck to the cave walls. The environment is treacherous and accidents are common. Despite the risks, their harvest could be worth thousands of dollars.

Swallow Birds Nest seems like the last thing that people would want to eat

On the face of it, Swallow Birds Nest seems like the last thing that people would want to eat. Formed from the congealed saliva of two species of small bird, the nests themselves range from pure white to muddy brown in colour. When added to a bowl of broth, the dried nests transform into a gelatinous mass and provide a unique texture and somewhat sweet flavour. Nests are valued according to their purity, with lighter colours the freest from contaminants such as feathers and faeces.

How Swallow Birds Nest Became One Of The World's Most Extreme Foods

Swallow Birds Nest is steeped in a rich history.

Despite its unappetising origins, Swallow Birds Nest is steeped in a rich history. Famously prized by Chinese monarchs and ruling classes as a key component in lavish banquets and celebrations, the soup is still believed by many to be the dietary equivalent of the fountain of youth. Traditional Chinese and East Asian medicines teach that Swallow Birds Nest consumption can improve skin, respiratory health and libido as well increase one's lifespan. Whether or not there is any evidence for some of the food’s more outlandish health claims is a topic of some debate among scientists. 

However, testing has revealed that the nests do contain high levels of calcium, iron, potassium and magnesium, giving credence to the idea that Swallow Birds Nest may well be a radical health food.

Fuelled by this compelling combination of science and superstition, demand for Swallow Birds Nest has exploded in recent years. A kilogram of white nests can today fetch up to $2,000, while the even more prized red nests command more than $10,000 for the same weight. The global industry is worth an estimated $5bn annually, and the product is popular from Hong Kong to the United States. With such financial reward on offer, it is little wonder that so many people remain willing to risk their lives.

When any natural resource attracts such high demand, the potential for overexploitation is never far away. Whenever a nest is harvested, it takes an adult bird more than a month to rebuild it, making it doubly difficult for mating pairs to successfully raise their chicks. In many places, harvesting has proved devastating. Caves that were once filled with flocks several million strong are now all but empty; a situation not only damaging for the animals themselves, but also for the communities that rely on them. In many places, corporations have sought to seize control of the most valuable caves, doing untold damage to the delicate ecosystems that live there.

It’s not just the environmental damage that makes Swallow Birds Nest such an extreme food. In several countries, the law demands that anyone looking to harvest Swallow Birds Nests must pay sizeable concessions to the government. These taxes are often so great that businesses and individuals will look to protect their investment at all cost. In Thailand, some businesses hire private armed militias to deter any would-be trespassers, and there are several reports of locals and tourists being subjected to gunfire for getting too close.

The danger of the profession, the risk to the environment and the desperately hostile attitude of certain organisations has made it abundantly clear that an all-natural approach to Swallow Birds Nest harvesting is no longer viable. As a result, some enterprising farmers have looked to create artificial environments for the birds, where their nests can be gathered in relative safety. Though these new environments still rely on the same rudimentary gathering techniques used elsewhere, advocates say that this approach may be the only way to ensure the long-term survival of the threatened species.

However, despite the proposed benefits of a switch to artificial farming, there are many experts who feel that even this is not a realistic solution. Concerns have been raised over the effectiveness of farmers, who in some cases have been shown to artificially alter their produce with chemicals such as nitrate and arsenic in order to yield a more attractive product. There is also very little evidence available over how such an approach on a wide scale would impact the environment long-term. The many layers and concerns over Swallow Birds Nest just go to show what a contentious food this expensive treat really is.

The world is full of weird and wonderful delicacies. All cultures practise their own unique brand of cooking, incorporating an array of ingredients that range from off-putting to incomprehensible to the untrained eye. In most cases, these delicacies are a direct result of centuries of tradition and superstition. However, as modern man has evolved, flourished and spread to every corner of the planet, many practices that were once harmless today threaten the fragile fabric of various ecosystems. As Swallow Birds Nest proves, if we want these traditions to survive, we need to reevaluate our approach. If we don't, the consequences could be dire for everyone.