Exotic Food: Eating Snakes

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INTODUCTION TO EXOTIC FOOD: SNAKE As a general knowledge to all of us, snake is an poisonous animal and many people are afraid of it since it’s poisonous venom may cause death in some cases. Most of the people will choose to kill the snake whenever they found a snake in their housing area. Some snake are poisonous and some are harmless colubrid. The most poisonous snakes are the rattlesnake, fer-de-lance, bushmaster, coral snake, copperhead and water moccasin. The harmless colubrid snakes are water snake, black snake, green snake, rat snake and garter snake. However, there is still an amount of peoples who like to eat snakes instead of killing them. This may be due to the nutritional value contained in the snake. For example, some people provided that eating snake will helps to enhance the quality of the skin. Further research has also shown that all snake is edible. However, it has to be properly prepared and cooked before it is served since it’s venom . Therefore, the reason that had caused me to have interest to choose this topic is why people eat snakes. According to ITM Online, snakes have medical values in China culture. This is because many parts of the snakes can be used as an medicine to different diseases. The nutritional values of snakes will be further discussed in 5.0 Nutritional Value and Interesting Facts. There are many type of snake in this world with different pattern, shape, size and colour such as rattlesnake, python, brown tree snake. The earliest record of eating snakes as food come from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D). At that time, it is said that the consuming of snake and using snake as medicine at Tang Dynasty was derived from the Indian Culture. This is because the Tang Dynasty period is famously kn... ... middle of paper ... ...hese gallbladders have a different form that can be easily distinguished by those who make the effort to do so; further, the TLC profile of the bile from these substitutes is entirely different from that of the snakes, and the bile from fowl do not produce the sweet aftertaste common to the snake bile. Snakes are also used in the treatment of cancer. Nowadays the small agkistrodon will be preferred while treating leukemia. A combination of Agkistrodon halys and Natrix trigrina (water snake), in the form of a powder (3–5 grams per day), is used as an adjunct to herbal decoctions and drugs to treat hepatoma. Other than those two stated above, the snake venom has its medical uses as well, which is during the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. This is because blood pressure reducing and anticoagulant properties have been identified in the snake venom.

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