November 15, 2015 3 min read
I have been told that according to Qur'an, agarwood chips or chunks are consumable as medicine form. Consumer boils those chips in water and drink it. Many questions were asked, the two below are the most popular one
1) Is it safe to drink?
2) Any scientific evidence?
Disclaimer: I am NOT a doctor, I am merely using available articles to discuss only.
According to Chinese Herbs Healing , agarwood (decoction) has been used as ingredients for many treatments:
This evidence showed that agarwood decoction has been used widely in Traditional Chinese Medicine practices. Based on the above, I assume it is safe to drink but just like any other plants or herbals, it is important to know where the agarwood came from and what is the method of induction are.
Wild agarwood, which is near the brink of extinction , is general safe to consume. There is no pesticide, or chemical intervened during its natural creation. It takes decades for the "defence mechanism", known as agarwood, to mature. In addition, to collect them is not an easy job and most likely illegal now. Hence, the cost per kg is from ten of thousands of dollar depends on its grade.
Cultivated agarwood: To meet the current demand of agarwood especially in the beauty industry to create high-end perfume, and incenses, religious ceremonies, several agarwood plantations have been created and most likely the induction technique (the method of agarwood creation) is different. Some use chemical to speed up the process with research proven that it is safe to consume. Others use biology yeast. As, they are trade secret, hence hardly known by public.
Currently, the demand of natural agarwood is extremely high as well as its affordability.
To meet this demand, our own plantation is going to plant "semi natural agarwood" by trying to mimic the natural way. The Aquilaria trees are drilled with multiple holes to make them wounded. Similarly, without "inducting" any chemical compounds or biological yeast, those trees will be left for the mother of nature. To protect and heal the wound, the defence mechanism is created hence agarwood.
This process takes much longer than current technology one but it is the closest way to the wild one.
The red circle shows the hole made by human
To create these medium quality woodchips, it takes total of 12 years without chemical or biology yeast. The advantage of this method is "100% chemical free", it is quite safe to drink.
For scent appreciation, this semi way is not as good as the other methods.
With human intervention, a better grade is created with a lower cost, please see below image
Chemical induction agarwood chip is also safe to consume as incenses or oil. To create agarwood using this method, the same process was applied. The only difference is this method could only be applied during rainy season.
The trick here is (with research proven obviously), to apply enough dosage of chemical as if it is too much, it would ruin the whole process, and if it is too little, it is a waste of chemical. The rain will wash away most of chemical during the creation process leaving the beautiful wood for collection.
Please feel peace in mind, although the above agarwood are chemical inoculated, they are safe to use in the form of heating or grinding for incenses. We have quality control with very strict product guide line when it comes to safety. It is not recommended to drink in form of decoction in this method.
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