Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - Let them eat snake: scientists back python as sustainable meat

Not low carb per se, but as a good source of protein, why not?

Quote:

Let them eat snake: scientists back python as sustainable meat

Dr Daniel Natusch has eaten plenty of Burmese python over the years. “At the risk of repeating a cliché, it tastes a lot like chicken,” he says.

“You run the knife along the back of the snake and you almost get a 4m-long filleted steak. Firm white meat, no bones. And then it depends on how you prepare it. I’ve had it barbecued, in curries, as biltong and, yeah, it’s great.”

It is also, he believes, a dish that too few of us have experienced and that python farming could be more sustainable than producing poultry, pigs or cattle.

In a study Natusch, who is based at Macquarie University in Sydney, looked at the growth rates of more than 4,000 reticulated and Burmese pythons at two large farms in Thailand and Vietnam, as well as how much the reptiles were given to eat.

In captivity, a well-fed baby python can double in size in a matter of weeks. By its first birthday, it can be 4m long, and Natusch and his colleagues discovered that the creatures can pile on more than 45g of bodyweight a day.

In terms of converting the protein they consume into protein that humans can eat, the snakes easily beat every other livestock species studied so far, including cows, pigs and chickens but also salmon and crickets.

They are about nine times more efficient than poultry, and more than 30 times more efficient than cattle, meaning they require far less protein to produce an equivalent amount of flesh, while also producing less CO₂ and methane, according to the study.

“This is an alternative livestock system that needs to be taken seriously,” Natusch said. “We’re not necessarily saying everyone should stop eating beef and turn to pythons, but there needs to be a conversation about them having a more prominent place in the agricultural mix.”

In livestock production, cold-blooded animals such as snakes, fish and insects require up to 90 per cent less energy than warm-blooded mammals, and snake meat is already growing in popularity in Asian countries, where it has traditionally been eaten.

However, the industry remains small and Natusch, who chairs the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Snake Specialist Group, believes that it could make sense to introduce snake farming to new regions.

Europe, where reptiles have rarely featured on menus, is not top of his list. Instead, he thinks the idea is probably better suited to parts of southern Africa, where more frequent droughts have made it tougher to keep traditional livestock and snakes have traditionally been a delicacy.

Pythons are also only distantly related to humans, he added. This means that pathogens that affect them are less likely to hop over to us, which is a risk with industrial pig farming.

At a time when many environmentalists are calling on the public to eat more plants, consuming carnivorous snakes might seem counterintuitive. But he argues that not all plant-based foods are environmentally friendly, and that snakes can be fed with waste protein that might otherwise be discarded.

“The bigger farms [in Vietnam and Thailand] feed them sausages, typically,” Natusch said. “They have access to abattoirs and pig farms, so those farms are feeding them on things like chicken heads that are discarded from poultry abattoirs and would otherwise be incinerated.”

In rural areas of Southeast Asia, households might keep “a couple of snakes under the bed” and feed them rats caught in rice paddies, he added.

He is also involved in an ongoing research project in which pythons have been fed foods other than meat, with no apparent ill effect so far. “We want to look at the long-term health implications, but preliminary results suggest that some proportion of a python’s diet can be plant-based,” he said.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/..._FOOD_AND_DRINK