Snail Pie Cures Malnutrition

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


[We interrupt our Copenhagen coverage to bring you some important news about snail pie.]

Snails are different things to different peope. To some, they are garden pests. To children with allergies, they are pets. (I had one as a kid. Her name was Evita.) Still others like to eat them with butter and garlic in fancy French restaurants. And now, a Nigerian nutritionist proposes snails take on another role: nutritious pie filling for hungry Nigerians. Snails, the researcher notes, are cheap and abundant in Nigeria and many other developing nations, and they’re a good source of protein, iron, and a bunch of vitamins.

Plus, they’re toothsome:

Udofia and her research team baked pies of both varieties and asked young mothers and their children to try the tasty meal. Most of them preferred the taste and texture of the pies baked with the snail Archachatina marginata to those made with beef. The kids and their mothers judged the snail pies to have a better appearance, texture, and flavour.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate