2024-09-02
I have thought today about whether I could or should eat snails. In terms of the allotment, I get huge amounts of garden snails, especially in the winter, and so I could have snails be my harvest for the spring, where I do not normally get any plant harvest save for perhaps rhubarb. Especially in the winter, I cannot get any harvest really (except leeks, potentially) and so snails could help with getting something. There are several things to consider with this.
Firstly, they may well be disgusting. If they are, then so be it, but I think there are probably ways to go about it. For instance, I could make soups out of them from just blending them up, or could cook them into things with other ingredients that mask the flavour.
Health-wise, I think snails are fairly good. They are a good source of protein and other nutrients, and so are generally healthy. The problem would be with nematodes or things that are unhealthy in the actual snail harvested from the wild, but a good processing regime and cooking that kills anything in there would essentially solve that issue. I am not sure if they are toxic in too high quantities, but that is an issue to further research, I suppose.
Another issue is veganism. Now, I'm not a vegan proper. I haven't been since about the age of 14. I used to eat eggs that were completely free-range (not, farm-based free-range, where it's essentially caged but there's a window up the top of the shed; actual, proper, free-range) and even now am willing to eat eggs from a farm where I can see the chickens and know how they are treated (downside: they're expensive eggs, but it's moral at least).
That said, I do avoid meat and dairy/eggs from factory farmed or traditional sources, or from the supermarket. I'm not too strict about it; I've bought food when drunk before that had goat's cheese in it, but I didn't realise because I was so drunk I didn't read the menu correctly; I still ate it. I'm happy to eat meat or animal products provided the alternative is that the meat goes to waste, or if it is killed naturally (i.e. roadkill - never happened yet), or it's just an accident (as in, a genuine accident, not a, whoops, chicken just appeared on my plate! type accident; this happens infrequently).
Is it moral to eat snails? And to expand it, what about mussels/bivalves? What if they are actually farmed, e.g. mussels? I eat industrially farmed vegetables so can't really justify it on the basis of environmental impact; the vegetables I eat from the shop have a horrible environmental impact (also, I doubt that the environmental impact of mussels is that great compared to cattle or poultry or suchlike). Therefore, I can only argue against it on moral grounds, i.e. that they are an animal. That said the category is arbitrary, and I suppose there is no real reason to strictly abide by the divide. If a bivalve cannot suffer (and, for instance, upon cooking a bivalve, it dies almost immediately) then there is no real problem with it in that way.
So, let's argue over... veganism, or whatever it is that I abide by. I don't think there is a term for it within the language. Flexitarian does not suffice, as I do not exactly make exceptions arbitrary, but based on moral criteria. It is also not a quantity matter; again, there are moral criteria, similarly to veganism, underpinning the decision, but which are not strictly the division of food, but rather the provenance of the food is also considered. I'm going to elucidate the specifics of this diet, which I am not sure what to call... well, since provenance is a key factor in the decision, I guess I will call it provenance-veganism, since that is a key factor.
I think, under provenance-veganism, bivalves and snails are acceptable. Just like how I am willing to eat eggs based on the provenance of it, the provenance of snails will be... the garden. There is potentially an awkwardness to the act of processing the snails (i.e. feeding them carrot, then starving them) but the lack of a complex sensory experience, and the instant death upon cooking, as well as the lack of general suffering, and the lack of a serious environmental concern, would render it acceptable, I do believe, under provenance-veganism. Furthermore, the snails will have to be gotten rid of anyways; for instance, I will need to kill that for pest control. As a result, I can deal with them in a way that is also beneficial dietarily.
I may well trial it this in the coming winter, where there will be copious quantities of snails. I will also consider it more, and will end up writing soon (not tonight, I need to get a little work in today) on the concept of provenance-veganism and whether it holds water. It is strange how I have held this idea in my head for close to ten years at this point, and yet have never thought to write it out in a more formal way. By doing so, it may help clarify certain concepts of it.
Reddit is a good place for finding information, but is of course centralised. I wonder if there could be a federated version of reddit. I imagine that each subreddit could be a separate website, and moderated by the website owner, given it's own domain, e.g. a subdomain of somebody's website. I wonder if it could happen, and whether that kind of federated design would work in terms of being a repository of information, if the website can always end up going under and is more common if that is how it is managed. I wonder if something like Reddit benefits from a certain amount of centralisation. That said, Reddit is still a horrid company and I really don't think it should be supported.
Ok. Have a good one, all.