It is not only in recent years that the number of smokers in China is so large. In the first 20 years when China advocated quitting smoking, the number of smokers had been increasing. What's more worth mentioning is that before cigarettes appeared, many elderly people in rural areas had the habit of smoking dry cigarettes. In the past, many farmers carried tobacco bags with them, which contained tobacco stems and dried tobacco leaves. When old people are idle or tired from work, they will light dry cigarettes and smoke a few mouthfuls, as if they can relieve the fatigue of the whole day.
It is said that smoking is harmful to health, and the dry cigarettes smoked by farmers are no exception. Many dry cigarettes smoked by farmers are grown by themselves, dried and rolled up to make cut tobacco. They are strong, can smoke, and taste great. However, this kind of unprocessed dry smoke has a high tar content, which is not conducive to health. But strangely, many people who smoke dry cigarettes in rural areas are old people in their seventies and eighties, who not only live long, but also have good health. This also makes many people puzzled: since rural elderly people like to smoke dry, why don't many people get lung disease?
This aspect is related to the living habits of farmers. It is different from white-collar workers who sit in the office all day doing mental work. Farmers have to do manual labor and are so tired in the fields from morning till night every day. In the words of farmers, even if some toxins are accumulated every day, they have been excreted through sweating. In addition, the quality of air and water in rural areas is relatively high, which usually does not cause other harm to people's lungs and respiratory tract, thus reducing the chance of illness.
On the other hand, in order to attract customers, many cigarette products now add some spices during the processing. Although this can make cigarettes taste better and sell more prominently, mixing these spices with tobacco will have more adverse effects on human health. In contrast, the dry cigarettes smoked by rural elderly people become more natural, and there are not many other harmful substances except tar.