Water chestnuts can be eaten raw, but it is best not to eat them raw to avoid contracting gingerbread worm disease. Water chestnut grows in the mire, there are a lot of bacteria and parasite eggs on the surface, especially the ginger borer cysts, when life eat water chestnut, ginger borer cysts are swallowed without being killed, and become larvae in the duodenum, larvae in the small intestine after 1-3 months to develop into adult worms and lay eggs, endangering human health. The incubation period of gingerbread infection can be 1-3 months. Patients with mild infection have no symptoms or mild symptoms, such as decreased appetite and occasional upper abdominal discomfort. Patients with moderate or severe infection may have gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, often accompanied by intermittent vague pain in the upper abdomen and, in a few cases, periumbilical pain, mainly in the morning on an empty stomach or after meals, occasionally with severe pain or colic. Some patients may have diarrhea, or alternating diarrhea with constipation, which is frequent, voluminous, and strangely smelly daily, and contains undigested food. Severely infected patients, especially children, may develop general malnutrition, such as weakness, depression, emaciation, anemia, etc., with varying degrees of edema. In addition, many patients have a history of automatic worm excretion or vomiting. Children also often have neurological symptoms, such as poor sleep at night, teeth grinding, and convulsions. A few patients may suffer from severe malnutrition, fever secondary to intestinal and pulmonary infections due to long-term chronic drainage like stools or mucus and blood, and may gradually develop to systemic failure and death. Large numbers of infected individuals (the number of worms can reach thousands) can induce intestinal obstruction as the worms form clumps and obstruct the intestinal lumen. Patients who eat a lot of water chestnuts or suspect that they are infected with parasites, such as those with a history of eating water chestnuts raw and experiencing unexplained abdominal pain, diarrhea and malnutrition, can seek medical examination and take relevant anthelmintic drugs such as albendazole, praziquantel and thioclopramide as prescribed by the doctor. For patients with severe malnutrition, nutritional support can be given and anemia and vitamin deficiency can be corrected promptly to restore physical and mental strength. After aggressive treatment, the prognosis of this disease is usually good. During treatment, you can choose easily digestible foods, such as noodles and rice porridge, and avoid foods that will aggravate gastrointestinal symptoms, such as spicy and raw cold foods. Pay attention to personal hygiene, develop good habits and exercise appropriately to help improve the body’s resistance and aid recovery. To prevent infection with this disease, you can boil washed raw water chestnuts in boiling water for 4-5 minutes and wait until the ginger trematode cysts are killed before eating them. If you must eat raw water chestnuts, be sure to peel them and the peeled fruit knife must not contaminate the flesh, or rinse them with boiling water to kill the ginger borer cysts before eating them.