Ox Gallstones Dominica

Gallstones form when bilirubin builds up in the liver and gall bladder. These calcified deposits are a serious threat to health, and should be removed quickly.

Ox gallstones have a high demand for use in Chinese medicine as natural gall stones or combined with other ingredients as proprietary Chinese medicines. The retail price for a tael of natural gallstones is as high as HK$19,000, ie US$65 per gram.

Origin

MONDAY’s story about charges being laid against an employee at a southeast Queensland abattoir over the theft of gallstones has aroused considerable interest among readers. It’s been suggested that gallstones are worth up to $20,000 a kilogram and have been used by some butchers to pad their books, at the expense of cattle producers.

Firstly, gallstones are extremely rare. The Australian beef industry produces just 200kg a year of them, one of the country’s largest dealers in the white market tells VICE. And even then, the amount is largely sucked out of the animal through bile extraction.

What’s more, they’re also an expensive commodity to produce, with gallstone prices at their highest point during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic in 2014 and 2015. And they’re unlikely to fall in price anytime soon.

So a few abattoirs have cottoned on to the burgeoning market in cattle gallstones. Rather than simply collect the stones and leave them to soak up water, abattoirs have started locking them away in waist-high stainless steel boxes with mesh baskets inside.

Gerard Murtagh, the man behind this strategy, is the Director of International Sales at Sunshine Trading: a family business that has become “the market leader in Australia” for cattle gallstones. He’s the man who invented those padlocked boxes, and he’s the reason almost every abattoir in the country has them installed.

But there’s also a more sinister side to the gallstone market. Gutties have been known to steal the precious little gems for decades, and it’s not just rapacious gutties who do so.

The plight of cattle producers in the face of rising costs is only exacerbated by the fact that gallstones are now in high demand as a valuable ingredient in Asian alternate medicines. This has led to more ‘risk takers’ on the kill floor, eager to cash in on the gallstone white market, as well as in the grey market for bilirubin-based pills that claim to cure everything from coughs and colds through to cancer.

And as long as the burgeoning market in bilirubin-based medicines continues to grow, so will this trend. Those who do decide to risk their gutties’ lives on the kill floor are likely to get paid handsomely for it.

Purity

Ox gallstones, or the ox-cow version for that matter, are an intriguing byproduct of slaughter. They are often retrieved during the bile extraction process on the eviscera table at the abattoir, and are a rare find in younger animals like bulls and yearlings, but not so in older cattle.

In addition to being a byproduct of the meat processing industry, they have a storied history dating back to prehistoric times. It is believed they may have been used to make medicinal teas for a time, but the only known recorded case was that of a Chinese emperor consuming one of these baubles in a glass bowl containing his own bile.

Although the value of the ox-cow gallstone is not clear, it can be estimated to be in the millions of dollars per metric ton. The good news is that it is now a lot easier to source.

Top quality ox gallstones are sourced from Dominica, a small island in the Caribbean. The product of a recent rebirth as an exporter of all things tropical and exotic, the islands have a number of well-known manufacturers in the food and beverage sector, and the ox-cow gallstone has become a big business on the island.

We’re proud to be able to offer our own version of the ox-cow gallstone and other tidbits from the local bowels at competitive prices, so drop us a line to discuss your requirements.

Color

Throughout the history of traditional Chinese medicine, animal biles, especially ox gallstones, have been used for treating a wide range of disorders in human beings. They are a precious Chinese herbal medicine. Whether they are sold as natural gallstones or combined with other ingredients as a propriety Chinese medicine, they are highly valued by the Chinese community.

The value of gallstones depends on a number of factors, including their quality and size. Gallstones can be as small as a grain of sand, or as large as a golf ball. They grow gradually, as bile continues to wash over them and collect extra material.

Ox gallstones, like other stones, are formed by the accumulation of bile in the gall bladder and bile ducts. The gall bladder is located in the upper right abdomen, below the liver. The bile ducts help with digestion, carrying bile to the duodenum. The ducts also carry waste from the liver and pancreas to the stomach.

Pigment gallstones, on the other hand, are dark in color and form from bilirubin. Some people have a mixture of both kinds of stones, while others have only pigment gallstones.

In TCM, ox gallstones were used as a therapeutic drug for a variety of conditions, including cholelithiasis and jaundice. They were also regarded as a “precious” medicine for the treatment of high fever, pneumonia, and pyogenic tonsillitis[4,13].

As a result, ox gallstones have been employed for hundreds of years in Chinese herbal medicine. In particular, they have been utilized as a superior (i.e., top grade) therapeutic agent for treating hepatobiliary diseases and a range of childhood diseases.

The use of ox gallstones is still widespread in China. There are more than 154 traditional Chinese herbal preparations containing this form of calcium bilirubinate as an ingredient.

However, the availability of natural ox gallstones in sufficient quantities by collecting them from abattoirs is extremely limited. Therefore, artificial ox gallstones have been developed since 1955. The ox gallstones are “implanted” in the bile-filled gallbladder of a sick ox using a surgical technique called a mini-laparotomy. Then, a small hole is made in the fundus of the gallbladder, which is grasped with forceps.

Size

Since Monday’s news that a Queensland abattoir was found to be stealing gallstones, their worth has been in the spotlight. There has been a lot of talk on social media about their worth, with many suggesting that processors are pocketing tens of thousands of dollars a kilogram.

The actual monetary value of the gallstones in question is a bit of a mystery, as they are hard to come by, and even harder to determine how much they are worth. Some brokers have been reluctant to share their pricing details.

There are several factors that go into determining their true commercial value, such as the size of the stone, its texture and how it is preserved. Whole, smooth, lustrous, golden specimens are in a class of their own, and will likely fetch the highest price. Dark stones, or those that have been pitted by the bile ducts, are of lower value and will most likely be tossed into a bin along with moldy and/or bloody items of the same variety.

A recent study suggests that the average gallstone will have a value of about US$20 per gram, although that figure can be as low as US$1 or as high as US$3000. For that reason, they are a worthy addition to the processing line as a secondary product.

The best way to determine the value of a gallstone is to look for a quality supplier that can deliver on their promises. That may mean going out of your comfort zone, and it is definitely the right move.

Ox Gallstones Dominica