Do not eat bats!

2003/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza

It seems that it is not advisable to eat flying fox, as they have seen that they accumulate toxins. These bats feed on the seeds of the palms of the Cycadae family and capture the toxins that accumulate in them.

Chamorro, on the largest island of Micronesia, in Guam, tends to develop a serious neurodegenerative disease. When they began to investigate the origin of this disease, it was suspected that it was due to the seeds of Cycadae, which use them to make bakery flour, but when preparing them to eat they realized that they clean with water and eliminate toxins. In this way it was concluded that the toxin could come another way.

The village of Guam also feeds on bats and, measuring the amount of toxins from these bats, have seen that it is hundreds of times greater than that of the bakery flour. Therefore, they have concluded that Chamorro disease is due to the toxins accumulated in bats.