He is the loudest nutrition influencer in China, known online as Dr. Piankouyu, and he carries two nicknames that will not come off: the Cyber Hua Tuo — Hua Tuo being the surgeon-deity of Chinese legend, the man you pray to when the doctors give up — and the social-Darwinist nutritionist. He is also, by popular vote, the man who respects the egg more than anyone alive. His method is flat and total: take a Western nutrition textbook, hold it up against the stubborn old men of the East, and let the physiology do the shouting.

What follows is his question-and-answer session, kept close to how he delivered it. One question, one answer, no cushioning. Where he is right, he is right for reasons worth knowing. Where he overshoots, he overshoots in the direction of certainty.

Q: What actually counts as a "great tonic"?

A: Anything the body cannot build for itself. Phenylalanine, isoleucine, leucine, threonine — the amino acids you have to eat. What carries the most of them? Eggs. Eggs are the most badass thing on the shelf.

Q: Where do I buy shrimp that a child can eat?

A: Shrimp that cannot be farmed. Mantis shrimp, fresh arctic shrimp — nobody farms them, so nobody doses them.

Q: Is it true some food carries "over two hundred nutrients"?

A: The human body does not need two hundred nutrients. Where would two hundred even come from? Are you a pig? Pigs don't need two hundred either. Fifty, give or take, is the whole list.

Q: Does pig blood clear the lungs?

A: Not one damn bit of use. Smoke less. That beats anything you can eat.

Q: Frog tastes better than egg, though.

A: Is your brain full of water? How does frog beat egg? Why does it taste better? You know exactly why — look at how much seasoning went in. Cook an egg the way they cook that frog and it won't taste bad either. With that much spice, a shoe sole tastes good. Dip my slipper in the sauce and tell me the difference.

Q: Does honey cure a hangover?

A: That old fructose — what hangover is it going to cure?

Q: Is deer fetus good for you?

A: Anything with "fetus" in the name is not good for you. Sheep placenta, deer fetus pills, human placenta polysaccharide: zero use. And you won't believe me, which makes you the biggest fool of the fools.

Q: What about bugs in vegetables?

A: Why are you afraid of eating a bug? A few bugs in the greens — so what? Can't you eat a bug? No bugs and you scream pesticide; bugs and you scream bugs. What do you want? Go eat your own crap.

Q: Is Russian honey better?

A: Also fructose. If you're going to eat honey, eat Chinese honey — no difference, all fructose. Spanish honey, Russian honey, New Zealand honey: fructose. Somebody's making that money either way. Let our own people make it, and stop buying foreign honey and burning cash.

Q: Can you eat your own dog's placenta?

A: Your dog's placenta? I've never met anyone that greedy. Why would you eat the dog's placenta? Why not eat an egg — an egg has a chicken's placenta inside it.

Q: Can I eat fruit instead of meals?

A: Are you a monkey? What sane person eats fruit for meals? I said 200 grams a day. More than that and the fructose overshoots. Why do you have to eat it to death.

Q: Is coconut water good?

A: I'll say it again: coconut water has no advantage. It is like salt water.

Q: Is eating a lot of wood ear good?

A: Wood ear cannot be sprayed. Remember it is a fungus, and fungi are picky about where they live. Wood ear is clean — not a hair of pesticide on it.

Q: Can black soy milk turn hair black?

A: Grind soy milk, throw in black beans, add some black rice — fine, no problem. But it will not blacken hair. Nothing to do with hair. By that logic, drinking cola should blacken hair too, since cola is also black.

Q: What should a pregnant woman eat?

A: Eggs, whole grains, vegetables.

Q: Can I shave?

A: What? I'll say it again: yes, you can shave. Why could you not? No study says shaving makes hair heavier. And if it did, so what? Every grown man shaves. Let it grow and it looks filthy. A moustache through puberty is disgusting.

Q: What's the difference between cigarettes and e-cigarettes?

A: The difference between crap and urine.

Q: Does eating fast make you fat?

A: Eat that much and you'll get fat however you chew.

Q: Equal weight of meat and bone marrow — which nourishes more?

A: Marrow has no nutrition. Marrow is oil. Pig brain, pig marrow, beef marrow: all oil.

Q: What do you eat for white hair?

A: Nothing works. Don't spend a cent on anything that claims to turn white hair black. All scams. Not one of them is any good.

Q: What should old people with bad memory eat?

A: Bad memory is bad memory. What are you going to do, send grandpa to sit the college entrance exam? Does he need that much stress? Half the time it isn't memory at all.

Q: Why does my face go red when I drink?

A: Then stop drinking. Why keep going.

Q: My child isn't chubby — is it a weak spleen? Should I tonify it?

A: No. Not chubby is fine. Get chubby and he stops growing tall, and the boy stops developing.

Q: Won't you die without salt?

A: How could you not eat salt? Your noodles have salt. What doesn't? Bottled mineral water has salt. Plain rice has salt and minerals — sodium. It is everywhere.

Q: Is a burger junk food?

A: If a burger isn't junk food, what is?

Q: Is black sesame paste nutritious?

A: It makes you fat. Nothing special in it.

Q: Do I need protein powder?

A: No. Ordinary people who don't train heavy and aren't athletes should not buy protein powder.

Q: Is weakly alkaline mineral water useful?

A: (bristling) There is no weakly alkaline mineral water! Every day with this weakly alkaline mineral water.

Q: Is live shrimp okay to eat?

A: Live shrimp isn't wrong. If you're in Hainan, in Zhoushan, on the coast, eating live shrimp is fine. But what are you doing eating live shrimp in Xinjiang? In Xi'an? It travels, it burns oxygen, it dies fast, so they dose it — sedatives, whatever they have. They always dose it. You gain nothing.

Q: Can I live on potatoes as my staple?

A: Yes.

Q: Loose stools — will probiotics fix that?

A: After you take them it still won't be formed.

Q: Can I drink any of those oral tonic liquids?

A: No. Let me be blunt: I have never in my life seen one useful product sold as an oral liquid.

Q: My kid won't eat vegetables.

A: "Beat him," he says. Do not. Put the greens on the table, eat them in front of him, and stop negotiating.

Q: Is goose egg useful for a pregnant woman?

A: Same as a chicken egg. Chicken egg equals goose egg; goose egg equals duck egg.

Q: Does milk make children hit puberty early?

A: Then don't drink it. Milk makes kids precocious and stops them growing — and yet Europeans drink milk and average 1.83 m. Dutch men average 1.87 m. Swedish men 1.83 m. Per-capita dairy there runs five to eight times China's. But over here, suddenly, milk cannot be drunk.

Q: What's bad about skipping breakfast long-term?

A: I skip breakfast too.

Q: Do black sesame powder and chia powder do anything?

A: Just eat the stuff as it is. Why not eat ordinary vegetables? Why not eat fresh fruit?

Q: Can purple cabbage be eaten raw?

A: Yes. Eat normally — vegetables, eggs, meat, every day, the way I tell you — and you don't need to take anything.

Q: Are probiotics for women useful?

A: Think about it, beautiful. The probiotic you swallow comes out the other end. That is one hole. The place you want it is another hole. It is not the same road.

Q: Does moxa over the joint remove dampness?

A: Then stick the moxa straight into the joint. What good is smoking it from outside? Too slow.

Q: My child won't eat meat.

A: No meat, then eggs. No eggs, then milk. No milk, then fish.

Q: Can you cup a nine-year-old?

A: Why cup a nine-year-old at all? His back isn't even the size of the cup. The suction is calibrated for adult tissue.

Q: Cheap milk versus expensive milk?

A: No difference, as far as I'm concerned.

Q: Beer, red wine, baijiu, rice wine — which can I drink?

A: I recommend water.

Q: Can I drink every day while breastfeeding?

A: You shouldn't drink every day when you are not breastfeeding either.

Q: What can I eat to reduce the damage from alcohol?

A: Eat crap.

Q: How does an adult get taller?

A: Walk on stilts.

Q: Is sea cucumber good?

A: Sea cucumber costs hundreds of times what an egg costs and delivers one percent of the nutrition. Sea cucumber is a grandchild of an egg — a grandchild of a grandchild.

Q: Is eating a lot of fruit good?

A: Who told you to eat a lot of fruit? 200 grams.

Q: I heard deworming medicine is good for children — improves appetite. True?

A: Where would your child get worms?

Q: Does an alkaline body make it easier to have a son?

A: (bristling) Nobody has an alkaline body! The body has no acidity or alkalinity! Drinking alkaline water will not make you alkaline. And why do you want a son at all?

Q: Are beef kidneys good?

A: Worse than beef. Why did people eat offal in the old days? Because they could not afford meat. You can afford beef now. Why eat this inferior protein?

Q: My six-year-old chews chair legs. What is that?

A: "No discipline. Slap him and it stops," he says. It is not a discipline problem — check iron and zinc.

Q: How do I fatten up my child?

A: Are you sick in the head? Why fatten your child? A fat boy stops developing down there, and then you are happy?

Q: Is 200 grams of steamed fruit a day good?

A: Steamed apple, steamed pear: all worse. Definitely worse than eating it raw. Steamed apple, steamed pear, boiled apple water — all worse than just eating the apple.

Q: Can I drink the chicken broth?

A: No. The broth has nothing. Boil the chicken and the chicken still has nutrition; the broth has none. Drinking only the soup does nothing.

Q: What should I eat while breastfeeding?

A: More milk, meat, eggs, dairy. Drink water, sleep — that is what fills prolactin. Any experienced mother knows: milk is not eaten up, it is slept up.

Q: Is a little wine every day good?

A: Pure suicide. Not one bit of use. Baijiu, beer, all of it: Group 1 carcinogens.

Q: Is postpartum confinement pseudoscience?

A: Then don't do it. Tell your wife to skip it. After surgery they tell men and women alike not to lie still. Why should childbirth be the one case where you do?

Q: Is additive-free black sesame paste good?

A: Sesame is very high calorie. Anything you can press oil out of is high calorie.

Q: What do I eat to grow hair?

A: Vitamin tablets.

Q: Is honey good?

A: Pure fructose.

Q: How about camel milk?

A: About the same as cow milk.

Q: My child likes raw vegetables. Is that okay?

A: Fine. Most vegetables can be eaten raw, except things like spinach.

Q: Can dark skin become milk-white?

A: Next life.

That is the whole session — sixty-odd answers, mostly one line each, no cushioning. If you want to see what actually carries all of it, amino acids and glucose and minerals, from one organ to the next, the cells are visible: search "WWAI" in your app store and download it today, then open a human blood smear specimen, where red blood cells are clearly visible under a virtual microscope.

Related reading

Multivitamin Risks: When Daily Pills Backfire

Where the 1.6–2.2 g/kg Protein Rule Comes From

Potato as Staple: 25 Pounds Down, No Calorie Math

References

[1] FAO. Dietary protein quality evaluation in human nutrition: report of an FAO expert consultation. FAO Food and Nutrition Paper 92. Rome: FAO; 2013.

[2] WHO, FAO, UNU. Protein and amino acid requirements in human nutrition. WHO Technical Report Series 935. Geneva: WHO; 2007.

[3] WHO. Guideline: sugars intake for adults and children. Geneva: WHO; 2015.

[4] IARC. Personal habits and indoor combustions. IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Volume 100E. Lyon: IARC; 2012.

[5] Fenton TR, Huang T. Systematic review of the association between dietary acid load, alkaline water and cancer. BMJ Open. 2016;6(6):e010438.

[6] USDA Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central: chicken breast, meat only, cooked; chicken broth. Beltsville, MD: USDA; 2019.

[7] Bolognia JL, Schaffer JV, Cerroni L. Dermatology. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier; 2018.