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It's crazy we are hunting tuna to extinction yet here is perfectly good python meat going to landfill. Florida needs to build a marketing campaign to make wild
by sampton 1y ago
It's crazy we are hunting tuna to extinction yet here is perfectly good python meat going to landfill. Florida needs to build a marketing campaign to make wild python a delicacy.
- hinkley 1y agoFeed it to pigs and eat the pigs?
- TZubiri 1y agoThat doesn't get rid of the pigs and is exactly how mercury accumuation works, it would even exacerbate the process.
- rocketpastsix 1y agoPythons in SW Florida are found to have dangerously high levels of mercury[0] so it may not be as perfectly good as hoped for. [0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31256202/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31256202/
- wnevets 1y agoIsn't that also true for tuna?
- sfilmeyer 1y ago>dangerously high levels of mercury All the better for a tuna substitute! More seriously, from your article >4.86 mg/kg in liver tissue from a snake that was 4.7 m long but overall averaged 0.12 ± 0.19 mg/kg in tail tip Tuna looks like it's about 0.39 mg/kg, so the liver tissue is suuuuper high but the tail tip is just normal high mercury.
- vintermann 1y agoEating predator livers is a bad idea in any case.
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y agoTuna are also predators. And high in mercury. Not a co-incidence.
- aspenmayer 1y agoAs pythons are probably bioaccumulators of mercury due to their position in the food chain, would it be fair to say that the pythons are canaries? Perhaps that is another reason to shoot the messenger.
- IAmBroom 1y agoCanaries, except that they don't die easily, and do attack and eat the miners. And can slip out of cages. So nothing like.
- aspenmayer 1y agoSounds like they've improved the living conditions and diet of the canaries, er, pythons. Shame about the miner incident.
- metaphor 1y agoConsider water spinach[1]---a.k.a. swamp weed in Florida, but also known as kangkung amongst Asian households---to which the USDA apparently classifies as a "noxious weed". It can be prepared for consumption in many ways, but I especially love it in a Filipino sour soup dish called sinigang[2]. If you want to buy this "noxious weed" in Florida (or anywhere in CONUS, for that matter), you'll need to skip Walmart and make a trip to your local Asian produce store, where it can be found profitably sold for pennies on the dollar. Why? At face value, the ethnic majority simply don't consume this green, and in any case, its natural supply far outstrips market demand, making it far less attractive for most sellers to justify retaining inventory. Now consider pythons that have invaded the Florida Everglades. Suppose the market for this were to flip in a similar way that beef oxtail has: a cut of "trash" meat historically shunned by the ethnic majority (but favored by certain ethnic minorities and the poor for its low cost and exceptional flavor) which has seen a major market repricing upward driven by the popularity of certain ethnic dishes. Or how short ribs (kalbi) and skin-on pork belly (samgyupsal) have seen significant upward repricing and market availability as KBBQ restaurants grow in popularity throughout the country (fire suppression equipment and commercial fire code compliance being primary enablers around my locality). In the case of beef/pork cuts, the market simply recognizes value and prices are set consistent with supply/demand...it's just optimizing margins on an existing large scale process. But would such a scenario really work out when the source of meat is an invasive species that Florida is looking to wholesale exterminate? I mean if the market wins, the state has a problem; and if the state wins, it's difficult to imagine how the market naturally materializes. Gator tail in the South is the closest proxy equivalent I can think of, but for all intents and purposes, it's a novelty dish which has hardly gained market traction at scale. I don't know...random food for discussion, so to speak. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinigang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinigang
- aspenmayer 1y agoMaybe look at market for other foraged products like ginseng and truffles to see what might happen? Those are supposedly difficult to farm, but I don’t see why pythons would be.
- TylerE 1y agoThere is very little meat on a snake.
- chasd00 1y agoAlso lots and lots of bones. I’ve had rattlesnake before, it’s not bad (taste like chicken) but man so many bones.
- TylerE 1y agoYes, exactly. A snake is mostly bones and digestive tract. Almost no fat (they’re ambush predators and only eat every few weeks typically).
- metaphor 1y agoNot just any snake...these are Burmese pythons[1]. [1] https://youtu.be/0wXeRStcG6A?t=173 https://youtu.be/0wXeRStcG6A?t=173
- TylerE 1y agoYes, there’s still not much meat on them, and it’s not meats want to eat. Carnivore meat tends to be extremely gamey.
- metaphor 1y agoThe 9 footer in the video should weight around ~25 lbs, good for around 4-5 lbs of consumable meat...not a bad harvest considering level of effort to butcher relative to, say, deer. Acknowledged on the potential excessive human consumption hazard and gaminess, but I'd like to think it's still possible for one man's trash to be another's prospective opportunity.
- nine_k 1y agoBefore the advent of sushi, tuna was a low-value catch, mostly used for cat food and such. I don't see why python meat cannot be used similarly.
- seb1204 1y agoSalmon as well as I recall. It was a Norwegian advertising campaign that made is desirable.
- vintermann 1y agoI don't know its prestige as food, but its prestige as catch has been high for a long time. A hundred years before Norway had a salmon farming industry, it had a salmon fishing tourism industry, consisting of various British lords.
- arnsholt 1y agoApparently salmon was considered dubious in Japan as sushi. I forget the details, but I think something about freshwater fish being inappropriate for sushi due to the possibility of a parasite in the meat that only lived in fresh water, not salt. So salmon for sushi was apparently pushed hard in Japan by Norwegian authorities and the salmon industry, I think in the late 80s or the 90s?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- esseph 1y agoAlaska has a very different and extremely positive view on salmon in its many forms.