More and more people are deciding to reduce or even eliminate their meat consumption. The causes are very varied, from concern for health to care for the environment, including, of course, animal rights. In some cases it may also be due to the lack of resources. There are countries where there is no solid economic infrastructure to maintain farms or crops for grazing. For this reason, an international team of scientists has explored a most curious alternative: the consumption of python meat.
These researchers, whose results can be read in Scientific Reports, have analyzed the consequences of breeding pythons on a commercial scale. To do this, they have studied the evolution over 12 months of several farms of these snakes, located in Thailand. Specifically, two different species of python were bred there: Malayopython reticulatus and Python bivittatus.
They observed several factors why consuming python meat could be the ideal alternative to other animals. However, most of these factors converge into one: these snakes are wonderfully resistant to exposure. fast.
Superfasting Serpents
The pythons are opportunistic predators. This means that they feast heavily when they have the opportunity, but in times when food is scarce they are able to survive without eating anything. In fact, there are species that can go more than a year without eating any food.
This is possible thanks to its ability to adapt your metabolic rate as it suits them. This rate refers to the minimum amount of energy they need to carry out all their tasks. physiological functions at rest.
When there is a shortage of food, they will not be able to obtain energy through food. Therefore, they greatly reduce their metabolic rate, until almost turn it off. On the other hand, when they have the opportunity to hunt, they increase that rate greatly. They take advantage to overload themselves with nutrients, even ingesting the equivalent of 25% of their weight in one sitting. This nutrient overload could cause Hepatic injury, as it does in other animals. However, these snakes are capable of inactivating the metabolic pathways that lead to said damage.
This is the main reason why the authors of the study that was just published initially considered that python meat could be a good option. And they can be raised on farms with a minimum amount of food, so the balance of food they consume with respect to the meat they produce would be very low.
Specifically, it was calculated that with python meat it is 1.2while for salmon it is 1.5, for poultry 2.8, for pork 6 and for beef 10.
Other advantages of python meat
The fact that they do not need as much food has many advantages. The first is financial savings, of course. It's also less costly to the environment, for exactly the same reason. Even waste from other factories can be reused. This is the case, for example, of proteins from poultry farms.
On the other hand, in countries with low economic resources, farm animals often get sick from not being fed properly. This also poses problems of food safetyas they can transmit diseases to humans who consume their meat.
This problem would be reduced with the consumption of python meat, since these animals do not get sick if they go for a long time without eating.
There are still quite a few limitations
For these scientists, the consumption of python meat is the future. But they acknowledge that there are still some impediments. On the one hand, the population may be reluctant to eat these reptiles. Is something very culturalso there would be countries in which it would not be a problem, but in others it could become an impediment.
It may also take a lot of labour, at least in the beginning, so close attention would have to be paid to costs. And we cannot forget that the effects of python meat should be studied about health. After all, that is one of the reasons why many people reduce their meat consumption.
What there would be no solution for is the fact of reducing this consumption to ensure the animal rights. A snake is as alive and feels as much as a cow or a chicken. At that point, python meat would not be the future. But in countries with few resources, where they need a cheap supply of protein to survive, it could be an interesting option.