Let them eat snake – scientists back python as sustainable meat source
Dr Daniel Natusch has eaten plenty of Burmese python. “At the risk of repeating a cliche, it tastes a lot like chicken,” he says.
“Firm white meat, no bones. I’ve had it barbecued, in curries, as biltong and, yeah, it’s great.”
It is also, he believes, more sustainable than poultry, pigs or cattle.
In a study, Natusch, who is based at Macquarie University in Sydney, looked at the growth rates of more than 4000 reticulated and Burmese pythons at two farms in Thailand and Vietnam. They were fed meat usually discarded by abattoirs, such as chicken heads.
A well-fed captive baby python can double in size in weeks. When a year old, it can be 4m long.
The reptiles can pile on more than 45g of bodyweight a day.
In terms of converting the protein they consume into protein humans can eat, the snakes easily beat cows, pigs, chickens, salmon and even crickets.
They are nine times more efficient than poultry, and 30 times more efficient than cattle, meaning they require far less protein to produce an equivalent amount of flesh, and produce less CO2 and methane, the team found.
“This is an alternative livestock system that needs to be taken seriously,” said Natusch, whose study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Cold-blooded creatures such as snakes, fish and insects require up to 90% less energy than mammals, and snake meat is already growing in popularity in Asia.
Pythons were only distantly related to humans, Natusch added, so pathogens that affected them were less likely to hop over to us, which was a risk with pig farming.
Rather than targeting European foodies, Natusch believes snake meat may be better suited to parts of southern Africa where droughts have made it difficult to keep traditional livestock.
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 said. – The Times