How to buy wolfberry

wolfberry is a multi-branched shrub of wolfberry in the Solanaceae family. It is 0.5-1 meters high and can reach more than 2 meters when cultivated. It is distributed at home and abroad. The whole body of wolfberry is a treasure. Ming Li Shizhen’s “Compendium of Materia Medica” records: “Pickling wolfberry leaves in spring, named Tianjingcao; picking flowers in summer, named longevity grass; picking seeds in autumn, named wolfberry, and picking roots in winter, named gupi”.

The tender leaves of wolfberry are also called wolfberry head, which can be eaten or used as wolfberry tea. In modern research, wolfberry has the effects of lowering blood sugar, anti-fatty liver, and can resist atherosclerosis. In addition, wolfberry can also be used as hedge planting in gardens, potted tree stumps, and shrubs for soil and water conservation.

How to buy wolfberry
How to choose authentic Ningxia wolfberry? What are the characteristics of Ningxia wolfberry? As the saying goes, “The wood is beautiful in the forest, and the wind will destroy it.” In recent years, a large number of domestic Chinese medicinal materials and related markets have exposed the sale of counterfeit Zhongning wolfberry. There are two main types of fake Zhongning wolfberry:

One uses wolfberry produced in Xinjiang, Tibet and other places as Zhongning wolfberry, but no harmful substances are added to it.

Because the wolfberry produced in these areas is far from the Ningxia wolfberry in terms of quality, taste, and nutrition, some businesses use this counterfeit Zhongning wolfberry to make huge profits, and many consumers lack the ability to identify.

The second lawless merchants seize the characteristics that consumers like bright goods, and add a lot of harmful substances to poor quality wolfberry to achieve visual beauty. For example, some illegal drying agents, dewaxing agents, and artificial colors are added to make the “look” of wolfberry bright and misleading consumers. There are three main “techniques”.

One is to fumigate wolfberry with sulfur, which is the most common method. Unscrupulous merchants fumigated wolfberry with sulfur to make the wolfberry color dry and red, attracting consumers.

The second is to color the wolfberry, because the color of wolfberry is generally dark red, so the color is to use bright red pigment to concoct the wolfberry to achieve a bright effect. Pigment is divided into food and industry. In order to save costs, many businesses use industrial pigments to color goji berries. However, the color of the goji berries that have been colored is easier to fall off, so this method is generally not common now.

The third is to soak the dried wolfberry in alum water to achieve the effect of brightening the color of the wolfberry. This technique exists in some markets.

Fourth, the merchants take advantage of the lack of consumer discrimination ability and describe the wolfberry produced anywhere as Ningxia Zhongning wolfberry. What’s more, the wolfberry is mixed with good and bad to deceive consumers.

If consumers want to buy high-quality Zhongning wolfberry, they need to learn 6 ways to distinguish:

One is to look at the shape of the fruit. The fruit shape of Zhongning wolfberry is long and oblong. The wolfberry in other production areas is mainly round, and there are elliptical and off-round. Some production areas have long fruits but thin and thin.

The second is to look at the color. The fruit of Zhongning wolfberry is red or purple, and the fruit color is consistent. Goji berries in other producing areas are mostly bright red or dark red, with inconsistent fruit color.

The third is to look at the appearance. The navel of Zhongning wolfberry (the place where the fruit separates from the stalk) is obvious, the navel is white, and the tip of the fruit body is not obvious.

The fourth is to look at agglomeration. In the internationally required water content (13%) range, wolfberry squeezed everywhere can agglomerate, only Zhongning wolfberry squeezed lightly, the agglomeration will loosen immediately, it is difficult to loosen wolfberry in other producing areas.

The fifth is weighing. Take a pinch of wolfberry and put it in a cup of clear water. Since Zhongning wolfberry has a long and flat shape and a large surface, it cannot fall down immediately. However, the surface of wolfberry in other producing areas is small, so it immediately sinks to the bottom of the cup when it is placed in clear water.

Sixth is the taste. Chew the wolfberry and taste it slowly. Zhongning wolfberry is sweet but not too sweet, and has a pure taste without bitterness and other peculiar smells, while the sweetness of wolfberries from other regions is too sweet, and some have obvious bitterness.

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