I do get some interesting questions. How about this one? 鈥淲hy in Central Europe did we as kids put a straw on an anthill, wait for the ants to crawl over it and then suck it for its sour taste? My mother did it and lived to 93!鈥�
Let鈥檚 deal with the living to 93 first. Many people live to 93 without ever having sucked on an ant-tainted straw, and undoubtedly there are many who did partake of this unusual practice and never made it to a ripe old age. So, scientifically the mother鈥檚 case is just an association and is meaningless, especially given that we are dealing with a sample size of one. But is there any plausibility to the anti-aging claim? Let鈥檚 explore.
It seems the event described was not a singular one. Folklore in some European countries held that placing a straw in an anthill and allowing ants to crawl all over it and then sucking on the straw was a remedy for aging. Whether the ants were first to be wiped off isn鈥檛 clear. What was the rationale? Ants were seen as tireless workers brimming with pep, able to carry many times their own weight, never needing to rest. The little creatures were seen as the very embodiment of vitality, and it was that vitality that was to be transferred to the straw-sucker. So went the story.
What we have here is a form of 鈥渟ympathetic magic,鈥� with 鈥渟ympathy鈥� in this instance being used to mean 鈥渟haring鈥� and 鈥渕agic鈥� implying a supernatural effect. It was the endurance, youthful energy, strength and apparent vigorous health of the ants that was to be shared with a person via the straw in a magical fashion. The straw was believed to absorb the ant鈥檚 鈥渓ife force鈥� and transfer it to the air inside the straw from where it would make its way into the body of a person seeking enhanced health and dynamism.
Other examples of sympathetic magic from history would include eating the heart of a lion for courage, consuming animal testicles for virility, and drinking bone broth for skeletal strength. The assumption was that the 鈥渆ssence鈥� of the consumed heart, testes or bone would be shared with and repair the corresponding body parts. The ancient 鈥淒octrine of Signatures鈥� that traces back to the ancient Greeks but was popularized in the 16th听century by Paracelsus is another example of sympathetic magic. It maintained that God or nature provides clues as to what humans should consume to cure ailments. Walnuts were good for brain disorders because of their similarity in appearance to the brain, liverwort would treat liver disease since the plant鈥檚 leaves are the shape of a liver, and rhinoceros horn, for obvious reasons, was the cure for impotence.
I think we can dismiss sympathetic magic as a mythical belief boosted in some cases by the placebo effect. But is it possible that contact with ants or their secretions could have some sort of physiological clout? American comic poet Ogden Nash once cleverly noted:
The ant has made herself illustrious
By constant industry industrious.
So what?
Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?听
Indeed, wood ants, field ants and carpenter ants spray formic acid to ward off predators. Even more interesting, when ant colonies get into battle with each other, soldier ants will release formic acid to mask the scent of pheromones that enemy ants lay down to mark trails that guide their confreres to food. Since formic acid was first isolated from crushed ants, its name derives from 鈥渇ormica,鈥� the Latin for ant. Should an ant be angered after being molested with a straw, it may let loose with some formic acid. This would certainly not have any beneficial effect on health but might cause a mild skin irritation. On the other hand, the bite of a fire ant would be memorable as it has more potent weaponry in the form of alkaloids that can really sting when injected into the skin. No health benefits here either. But fire ants are only encountered in southern climes.
There is one way that the 鈥渟traw-in-anthill鈥� approach could produce a health benefit. Instead of sticking that straw in the mouth, stick it into a container of milk! Wait a bit, and you will have yogurt! The origins of 鈥渁nt yogurt鈥� trace back to Turkey and Bulgaria where red wood ants were added to milk. The conversion of milk to yogurt requires bacteria that produce lactic and acetic acids that cause milk proteins to precipitate and provide enzymes to convert some of the proteins, fats and sugars in milk into flavourful compounds.
Yogurt can have different tastes depending on what bacteria are used as starters. Most commercial yogurts these days use Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus but, red wood ants also carry Frutilactobacillus sanfranciscensis, the bacteria that bestow a delightful flavour on San Francisco sourdough bread. Danish researchers recently demonstrated that a tasty yogurt can indeed be made by adding four live red wood ants to a jar of warm milk.
Yogurt has had the term 鈥渉ealth food鈥� bestowed on it due to studies demonstrating that the 鈥減robiotic鈥� bacteria it contains can rebalance a gut microbiome that has been disturbed. Whether ant yogurt is any better in this regard than any other yogurt has not been studied. But 1908 Nobel Laureate Elie Metchnikoff did maintain that Bulgarian peasants had impressive longevity because yogurt was a staple in their diet. How much of that yogurt used ants as a starter culture remains a historical mystery. I would be game to try ant yogurt, but I don鈥檛 think the occasional ant crawling around my kitchen is the right species.
