Vietnam is eating a meat that scientists think the whole world should learn from
In Vietnam, a team of international scientists has unexpectedly found a meat that could help secure a sustainable future for the planet and humanity. So what is it?
As the climate crisis deepens, scientists are urgently searching for sustainable ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale. They have pushed green solutions such as burning less fossil fuel, ramping up renewable energy production and developing new manufacturing processes to make everything more environmentally friendly.
Shifts are under way at every scale, from plastic straws to grass straws, from thermal power to solar power, and from gasoline cars to electric vehicles. Yet one sector that contributes heavily to the climate problem has seen no clear transition: livestock farming.
It is an undeniable fact that livestock farming is one of the main drivers of global warming.
In their search for a meat that is friendlier to nature and more sustainable, a team of international scientists from Macquarie University and the University of Adelaide (Australia), the University of Oxford (UK) and the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) traveled to Vietnam.
There, they believe they found the answer: a meat that could help humanity curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the land needed for agriculture, freeing up space for lush forests that help slow climate change.
A "green" source of protein
The meat the international team found is snake and python meat. In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the scientists said they spent more than a year in Vietnam studying the growth of thousands of snakes and reticulated pythons (Malayopython reticulatus).
The animals are raised on commercial farms in Ho Chi Minh City and An Giang, a province in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam, for their skins, which supply the footwear and luxury fashion industries. But snakes and pythons can also be sold for meat, and it is very high-quality meat.
Reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus).
Standing out among Vietnam's reptiles is the reticulated python. These snakes can grow up to 6 meters long, packing around 150 kg of white meat, which is considered by some to be a healthier alternative to red meat from livestock. And they produce this meat very efficiently from limited food sources.
The scientists said pythons farmed in Vietnam typically eat only rodents and pellets made from pork, chicken and fish by-products, yet they grow very quickly from their very first year. Compared with pigs, cattle, chickens and even salmon, pythons need less feed to produce each kilogram of meat, a measure scientists call the feed conversion ratio.
Each day, a python in Vietnam can gain up to half a kilogram. That is thanks to the python's low feed conversion ratio. They need to eat only 1.2 kg of dry protein to produce 1 kg of meat. By comparison, the figure is 1.5 times for farmed salmon, 2.1 times for crickets, 2.8 times for poultry, 6 times for pigs and 10 times for cattle.
The lower the feed conversion ratio, the better. The same amount of feed needed to produce 1 kg of beef could produce 8 kg of python meat.
A python eating "sausages" recycled from pork, chicken and fish by-products.
Image from the study.
"The food and protein conversion ratios of pythons outperform all mainstream agricultural species studied to date", stressed Dr. Daniel Natusch, the study's lead author from Macquarie University. "Pythons grow very rapidly, and they reach 'slaughter weight' within their first year after hatching from the egg".
Pythons also have an environmental edge. Weight for weight, reptiles such as snakes and pythons produce fewer greenhouse gases than mammals. That is because they have a more robust digestive system, capable of digesting even the bones in their food, and excrete almost no liquid waste. Reptiles produce less manure than any mammal, such as pigs, buffalo and cattle.
Their water consumption is even more impressive. "Pythons need very little water and can even survive on the dew that collects on their scales in the early morning. Each morning, a python only needs to lick its scales, and that is enough water for the whole day", Dr. Natusch said.
This is a big advantage for python farming in parts of the world that are increasingly hit by drought due to climate change. Pythons can live for up to a month without being given a single drop of water.
Each morning, a python only needs to lick its skin, and that is enough water for the whole day.
In addition, pythons can go without food for long periods without losing much weight. A python in Vietnam can be starved for 127 days yet lose only a few percent of its body weight. Dr. Natusch said: "Theoretically, you could stop feeding it for a year."
Python farmers can simply stop feeding their animals when conditions do not allow it. Dr. Natusch cited the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, when farmers could not sell their pigs because of supply chain disruptions. Because it was too expensive to keep feeding the pigs, they had to cull them and turn the pork into fertilizer.
"At that time, I just wished those farmers had been farming pythons", he said.
Taking Vietnam's python farming model global?
Despite the advantages of pythons, their meat is currently popular only in a few Asian countries such as Thailand, China and Vietnam. In Thailand, people commonly farm the Burmese python (Python bivittatus). Meanwhile in China, pythons are also raised for medicine, for food and for skins for the luxury fashion industry.
An estimated 4,000-plus snake and python farms operate in Vietnam and China, producing millions of animals each year. Could farms on that scale be replicated around the world?
An estimated 4,000-plus snake and python farms operate in Vietnam and China, producing millions of animals each year.
Dr. Natusch said there are advantages that favor such a future, but also barriers to overcome.
On the plus side, python farming requires very little capital investment, meaning the barrier to entry is much lower than for other traditional livestock industries. With no need for complex breeding programs or large housing systems, python farmers in Vietnam can convert their own yards or storehouses into small python farms.
Each python needs only a cage of about 2 square meters for its basic needs. They are sedentary by nature and can live happily alongside other pythons. "Pythons also exhibit few of the complex animal welfare issues commonly seen in caged birds and mammals", the researchers said.
Although some conservationists have raised concerns that commercial snake and python farming could lead to illegal harvesting of wild populations, Dr. Natusch argues that the opposite has happened. Python farming creates financial incentives for local communities to thrive and to conserve wild snake populations and the habitats they depend on.
During his research in Vietnam, Dr. Natusch found that some farms even hire local people, often retirees, to raise young pythons for a year. They take the pythons home, catch rats themselves to feed them, then sell them back to the large farms. Local people have no need to catch pythons or snakes in the wild to earn extra income.
Pythons being fed rats at a farm in An Giang.
Given these advantages, the scientists think Vietnam's python farming could well be introduced to other countries, especially in Africa, where food insecurity is worsening due to escalating climate disasters and outdated farming techniques.
Imagine farmers in Africa catching rats in their cornfields and feeding them to pythons to obtain a high-quality protein source that is also more sustainable for the environment.
However, scaling up python farming also faces quite a few barriers. The first is cultural. In East Asian countries, snakes and pythons have traditionally been used in folk medicine (they are not a proven treatment), so eating them is culturally accepted.
Speaking of dishes made from python and snake meat, Dr. Natusch said he has tried a range of them, from python soup, stir-fried snake and grilled snake to python curry and meat floss. "Basically their meat tastes like chicken, but with a hint of game meat", he said.
A python slaughter line right on the farm.
Because snakes have no legs, their meat can be stripped and processed very thoroughly. Very little goes to waste during slaughter. In particular, they are very easy to fillet. "You just run a knife along their backbone and you get a single piece of meat up to 4 meters long", Dr. Natusch said.
"Reptile meat is similar to chicken: high in protein, low in saturated fat and with broad aesthetic and culinary appeal", the scientists wrote in the paper. Even so, it has yet to be accepted by Western markets.
In his own home country, Dr. Natusch said Australians have a saying: "The only good snake is a dead snake. People in our country are quite afraid of them."
Although pythons are not venomous and usually move more slowly than other snakes, they have large teeth and can bite people if provoked. There have been many cases of wild pythons entering people's homes and eating pets such as dogs and cats.
"I think it will be a long time before you see python burgers served at your favorite local restaurant in Australia", Dr. Natusch said.
A plate of grilled snake sausage.
A bowl of python soup.
However, through his new research, Dr. Natusch hopes to change how people in Western countries perceive python meat.
"Our study confirms previous studies that breeding and raising pythons in captive production facilities for commercial purposes is biologically and economically feasible", he wrote in the paper in Scientific Reports.
And in a world facing countless problems caused by climate change, python meat in particular, and reptiles including snakes in general, could become part of a simple solution to them all.
Pythons and snakes provide a greener source of protein for humanity, control rodents that damage crops, help tackle hunger in many countries and reduce emissions from poultry and livestock farming.
The researchers see captive-bred python meat as a possible part of the human menu in the future. Note that in Vietnam, hunting, trading or consuming wild snakes and other protected species is illegal; only animals from legally registered captive-breeding farms may be traded.
