Combining biotechnical advancements with folk wisdom passed down from generation to generation, Lin Shu-lin (林樹林), a pig farmer in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) has found a way to make money from pig gallbladders.
In the past, Taiwanese living in rural areas did not have shampoo, and used pig gallbladder juices or even urine as substitutes, Lin said.
Having raised pigs for more than six decades, Lin said he saw his grandmother using pig gallbladder juices as a substitute for shampoo when he was younger.
Photo: Lin Kuo-hsien, Taipei Times
In the past women would ask pig owners for the gallbladder whenever pigs were butchered in villages, Lin said.
The juices from the pig’s gallbladder were rumored to make hair “silky smooth and shiny,” Lin said, adding that after farmers started using machines to slaughter pigs, the gallbladder was usually discarded.
The practice of using pigs’ gallbladder juices for cosmetic purposes gradually went out of fashion, Lin said.
Mailiao Township has the highest density of pig farms in the nation, but with unstable prices and falling revenues in the industry, pig farmers have had to find ways to assure their customers of the quality of meat, as well as developing products of higher added-value, he said.
Lin said that he remembered how his grandmother used to wash her hair with pigs’ gallbladder juice five years ago and decided to try to turn the practice into a marketable product.
Lin approached National Chiayi University’s Innovation Incubation Center as a partner to extract the foul-smelling substances from the gallbladder juices and create a cosmetic product.
Thousands of bottles of the new shampoo have been sold since the product’s launch.
A 70-year-old woman surnamed Hsu (許) said that when she was younger, she also used pig’s gallbladder juices as shampoo.
Several decades ago, bad sanitation and lice were common issues, Hsu said, adding that in rural parts of the country, residents believed that washing their hair with urine would rid them of lice.
No research or documentation can prove pigs’ gallbladder juice has any effect on the care for one’s hair, but with no extra components harmful to the body the shampoo should not cause any harm, dermatologists and practitioners of Chinese medicine said.
A practitioner of Chinese medicine surnamed Chiu (邱) said that in Chinese Medicine, a pig’s gallbladder is classified as bitter and cold, and is mostly used to rid the body of excess “fire” caused by ingesting foods attributed with being “hot.”
There is no mention in classical Chinese medical texts of gallbladder juice being used externally on the body or being used as a substitute for shampoo, Chiu said.
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