# Snake and eggs for breakfast? Florida may soon encourage you to eat invasive pythons



## Leeda.the.Paladin (Dec 16, 2020)

Donna Kalil estimates she’s eaten a dozen pythons in the last three years or so.



That’s not including the python jerky, says Kalil, a python hunter for the South Florida Water Management District. “I eat that several times a week because I take it out with me on python hunts and I eat it out there.”

State officials would like to see more people like Kalil putting pythons on the menu — not because of their nutritional value but as another way to encourage hunting to control their population.

Burmese pythons are considered an invasive species in Florida. The voracious appetite of these apex predators disrupts the food chain in environmentally fragile areas like the Everglades. Believed to have begun their Florida invasion after owners released them into the wild, python numbers have boomed and the state has struggled to reign them in.

“We would like to use consumption as another way to encourage people to remove pythons in Florida if the meat is safe to eat,” Carli Segelson, a spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, wrote in an email. “The study will help ensure that is safe.”
Other invasive species are consumed — most notably lionfish — as a way to control their populations. Some people even eat iguanas.

But there’s a concern about eating pythons, and it’s one the state has started to research: The massive snakes, like some fish, could be full of mercury, a neurotoxin that is dangerous to humans.

If the levels are safe, get ready to make new entries in your Florida invasive species cookbook.

Python is good in chili — or so Kalil says. She also likes it in stir fry.

But her favorite way to eat python is to pressure cook it for 10 or 15 minutes, sauté it with onions and garlic, and add it to pasta and sauce.


And the taste? “I don’t really want to say like fish because it is more the texture of fish,” Kalil said, “but it definitely does not taste anything like fish, it tastes more like chicken.”

Or, maybe, another white meat. “I’m going to say pork,” she said. “More like a pork chop maybe.”
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration say the safe limit for mercury is 0.3 parts per million. Some of the Everglades pythons registered more than 100 times that.

Rest of the article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-ne-florida-encourages-eating-pythons-20201209-tvykcdh35bgtvfuv7vvxm4iy6q-story.html?outputType=amp


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## Crackers Phinn (Dec 16, 2020)

Unfortunately, it's not Kosher but if all there was to eat was python then that's what I'd have to eat.


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## futureapl (Dec 26, 2020)

Yuck..I couldn't think of a better word


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## mensa (Dec 27, 2020)

Ain't no way.


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## spacetygrss (Dec 30, 2020)

Nah. I'm good.


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## frizzy (Dec 30, 2020)

Not eating that, but I'll happily accept all manner of shoes,  belts, gloves and jackets made of python leather.


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## brg240 (Jan 5, 2021)

This looks disgusting. I need a chef to fix it.

I wouldn't want tho eat it but I think it's a great idea.


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