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“I’m mature / I’m past my prime / But I still have / Some youth / I’ll take care of myself / So it doesn’t happen / I’ll buy quail eggs to eat… I want quail eggs to eat / He has to solve my problem …”
Immortalized by the king of baião Luiz Gonzaga, but created by the composer Severino Ramos in 1971, these verses are – as far as is known – the first record of the belief in the miraculous power of the egg to raise male morale. Where the good Severino got his inspiration from is still an unsolvable mystery: for more than a month, tried to unravel his whereabouts and we couldn’t even find out if he’s alive.
The folklorists consulted also have no idea where this popular belief came from. But good clues can be found in some characteristics of this tiny domestic bird. The quail is quite precocious – it reaches sexual maturity at 40 days old – and its egg production is much more abundant than that of other birds. For this reason, and also for the ease of storage (they are very small eggs, after all), it was the main source of Vietnamese food during the war against the United States.
In the scientific sieve, however, this legend did not pass. “There is no study that proves the efficiency of quail eggs as a natural alternative to Viagra”, says urologist Joaquim de Almeida Claro, from the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). His colleague Celso Gromatsky, from Hospital Sírio-Libanês, in São Paulo, states that “the erection depends on the relaxation of the muscles of the corpora cavernosa of the penis. A second erection, after orgasm, only occurs after a period of latency and there is no evidence that food can reduce this period. Perhaps the quail egg is associated with virility because of its shape, which resembles a testicle.” Anyway, it is a very rich food. In addition to easy digestion, it contains essential minerals for the body (iron, manganese, copper, phosphorus and calcium) and an impressive battery of vitamins (A, B1 and B2, C, D, H, E, PP factor, pantothenic acid and pyridoxine ).
With all this, it is equivalent to 100 grams of milk in calories, proteins and vitamins – in addition to having a higher iron content. With so many qualities, it certainly ends up giving vigor to human performance in any activity. Too bad Severino couldn’t give his personal testimony!