Snakes: The new, high-protein superfood | Hacker News Reader

Snakes: The new, high-protein superfood

phys.org

19 pointswglb21 comments

Python tastes good but I don’t know if it is easier to keep 100kgs of pythons (one huge-ass 10 meter python or many smaller ones) to get 88kgs of meat compared to a single hog which yields roughly the same amount.

My grandparents and parents kept hogs so I have a little experience with dealing with them. Despite their rowdiness one hog has got to be easier to deal with than a 10 meter python or (more likely) many smaller examples- energy input be damned.

Not to mention pigs can eat lots of different types of food including your foods scraps

Pythons may not need much water, and don't use energy to maintain body temperature, but their food surely does. Farming predators seems to me like doubling the amount of work per kg of meat.

> They need very little food and will eat rodents and other pests attacking food crops.

How would you even begin to take advantage of that when farming pythons. First let them loose onto a field, then somehow capture them before harvest?

So, a good reason to hunt the invasive species to local extinction in the Everglades, where they are ruining the ecosystem.

The annual hunting contest is popular but insufficient. Wild, free-range, organic python meat could be a trend.

(Smart guy. Totally grasped the subjacent idea)

I had a co-worker who had camped out in the west a lot and told me about the time they killed a big rattlesnake.

It was tough.

Those things don't want to die.

Well they decided they were going to cook it over the campfire and eat it, so they skinned and filleted it first.

It was tough.

The skin is really difficult to cut through and there's not much meat either.

They roasted it thoroughly, it was not easy to know when it was done because it's a very low-fat meat, and doesn't sizzle like you would expect.

It was tough.

Said it was more or less like Snake Jerky.

Every passing day, I am more happy I am born as an Indian because I know it is possible to live a healthy life without having to resort to the consumption of protein at any cost.

And what makes the Indian diet healthy? Is there any data which shows improved health outcomes?

I don't know if the diet is healthy or not - I am just stating that the culture itself does not place an emphasis on protein to the extent that snakes or insects become a viable source of food, but still results in healthy lifespans of 90-100 years (anecdotal of course) which is a desirable outcome for me personally. You could say that adding snake meat to my diet will increase my lifespan by 20 years and that would still seem like an outrageous choice for me to make.

I mean, there's many factors to live expectancy but don't you find it strange to praise the cultural diet of a country that is at the bottom of the life expectancy chart? And looking at just longevity of individuals most centenarians are from countries with mostly animal protein based diets like Japan and the USA.(Their percentage of centenarians per capita being 100x higher.) Now, this might just be a correlation based on wealthier countries consuming more readily available meat. So i'm not gonna say that protein is a significant factor for health. But it's pretty clear that there's not data supporting the indian diet being healthier.

It's probably not correct to attribute all differences in life expectancy between India and USA to diet alone - factors like air quality are so much worse in India and play a significant role in reducing life expectancy as well. What makes more sense is to compare the life expectancy of Americans who tend to follow an Indian diet vs. those who don't. Asian Indian Americans have a life expectancy of 86-89 years [1], higher than of the US as a whole and even other asian sub groups. So the relative lack of importance attributed to protein is perhaps not as big a deal as people make it out to be.

1: https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/58/5/1631/178...

Indian diet is diverse and emphasizes moderate consumption, resulting in some good health outcomes overall.

However, the lack of protein is still a major concern. Indian's have "skinny fat" bodies with low musculature. This puts them at risk for cardiovascular diseases. This does, in some part, contribute to low life expectancy in India.

The study you posted in the other thread shows better health outcomes for Asian Indians in the US. But it also mentions Asian Indians have higher socio-economic status, better education and higher per-capita incomes. The same is the case with other Asian demographics. It is not the least bit surprising that they have higher life expectancy, irrespective of diet.

I would argue adding more protein (doesn't have to be animal protein) would result in even better outcomes for Indians everywhere.

I will definitely agree that adding more protein would improve health outcomes for indians - all I really wanted to point out is that a reduced intake of protein does not lead to a drastic decrease in lifespan (other effects dominate that). So there isn't an inherent feeling of anxiety in people who are used to that diet to consume protein at all costs and thus start to consider snakes as an acceptable form of food.

What does you diet consist of?

That reminds me the classic love affair between reptilian guts and Salmonella...

One in each two of your Py-burger donors carried a surprise. I hope they are well cooked.

The article states python fat is medicinal, but how? Googling around, it seems Chinese water snakes have good omega-3 composition, but thats it.

Thanks, but no thanks! I will stick to beef and pork, you eat bugs and reptiles if it suits you well!

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