Recipes: Snail kebab

Snails kebabs make an original and exquisite appetizer for your guests, fast and easy for those who love simplicity in the kitchen.

Ingredients

• Small wooden skewers
• Shallots
• Breadcrumbs
• Garlic
• Parsley
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Salt

Preparation

Cut the garlic, parsley and shallots and blend them with the breadcrumbs.

Take snails off their shells, remove the entrails, and thread each one onto the skewers.

Some gourmets advice to keep the entrails because it is considered the most delicious part of a snail, where the real flavor concentrates.

Spray the skewres with the already-mentioned blend and fry the kebabs in hot oil until they turn golden.

Serve very hot and enjoy!

Snail farming: pros and cons of the business

So you want to start a snail farming business, huh? Well, let me tell you, you have set eyes on a exciting and profitable type of business.

However, before you make any big deci$ion you must be aware of the pros and cons of snail farming.

Pros of snail farming

• Snails have a great demand.
  
• Snail farming has a bright future
• As long as responsible snail raising and consumption continues, the high demand of snails will rest assured.
• Nowadays there is a huge concern about eating natural and healthy.
• Other meats have nothing on snails
• The great quality and nutritional value of snail meat can compete with poultry, pork and beef.
• Snails reproduce in large quantities and adapt to most climates
• Feeding snails is cheap and easy
• Snail food is mostly vegetables. To make them grow larger, there are low-cost wholesale flours enriched with calcium.

Cons of snail farming

Lack of acknowledge on

• Raising snails: understanding their biology and conditions they need.
• Laws and regulations on your country regarding to the raise, sell, export and import of snails.
• How to start a business of this kind.
• Dealing with middlemen.

Snail slime is not what you think

There is a lot of hype surrounding snail slime. It is heavily marketed as the greatest natural wonder for skin care and rejuvenation. Although there is proven scientific evidence of the properties of snail slime, there are many detractors of the snail slime products.

So, what’s the deal with snail slime?

First, we have to make the difference between snail slime and snail secretion. The slime is the fluid the snail uses to slide and that has no healthy quality for human beings whilst the snail secretion that can help delay skin aging and repair it, among other properties. Snails produce this secretion with the merely purpose to defend themselves from environmental aggressions.

And all this “as-seen-on-TV” skin creams…?

Skin creams with repairing and antioxidant properties must have been manufactured with “snail secretion”, obtained through stimulation such as radiation or mechanical stress, and not with the snail slime for sliding.

It’s proven that legitimate snail products can produce a gradual reduction of fine and deep wrinkles, improves aged skin and hydrates it. It works in two ways: it stimulates collagen production and elastin, the skin components that repair skin aging; and reduces damages produced by free radicals, responsible of premature skin aging.

Sea snails amazing benefits

Scaly-foot sea snail (Crysomallon squamiferum)

There is no doubt that snail slime has plenty of qualities like curing pain. Snail slime contains chemical products that allows them to catch their preys when they bite them. Researchers at Queensland University, Australia, have used it to develop an oral medication to ease the most severe cases of pain with an efficacy as similar to morphine’s. 

Snail medication creates no addiction and is required in small doses to work. After proving these effects, scientists used to relive pain in humans. At first it had to be injected directly onto the spine, with a limited usage.

In its oral form, snail slime gets to ease the severe pain as the one suffered by people with a peripheral neuropathy, in much more smaller doses than the regular medications used to treat this condition, and with no risk of addiction.

Another amazing quality of sea snails is the strength of their shells. According to the MIT, the shell of the Crysomallon squamiferum snail (that lives in the Indic Ocean) is so resistant that it can be used to as base to make shields for soldiers and to improve of military vehicle armour. 

Familiarly called scaly-foot snail, the shell of this gastropod is different from any other natural shell. It has three layers, able to divide the energy that could weaken or fracture it. This makes of it the strongest of protection.

Snails under stress

Not only snail breeders can get stressed out about their snail farms, but snails themselves can suffer stress too. Very snail breeder knows how delicate the process of raising snails is since they need specific humidity and temperature conditions.

The farm conditions must be the best, since they are very small animals, plastic containers and pet carriers seem like a good first solution. Snails do not feel comfortable when they are so close to each other. Cold water also causes them stress. A sponge helps create a humid space.

During the stress phase snails segregate a substance –its reaction towards external aggressions- in order to obtain the famous "snail slime” that is used to elaborate cosmetic products. 

Snails go under a registered physical stress procedure of rotation that “makes no harm” to the snails. Ten snails are needed to produce 4 mm of the snail beauty products.

Photo: Butterfly724