Snails are “the” holiday dish par excellence: we hardly ever eat them during the year, but when Christmas and New Year arrive, they are almost at every meal!
The snail, an interesting meat for health
“The snail itself is an interesting meat, underlines Nathalie Négro, dietitian-nutritionist. Indeed: if there is a little less protein than in other meats (“only” 16%, which means that 100 grams of snails still provide more protein than 2 eggs), snails contain vitamin C (15 mg per 100 g) and calcium (90 mg per 100 g), nutrients that are usually absent from meat products.” The specialist also notes that the snail contains more iron than other meats on average – 2.6 mg per 100 g.
The problem, both for health and for the silhouette, is therefore not the snail, but the parsley butter that accompanies it! “In snail-based preparations sold commercially (fresh or frozen), the meat represents only around 48% to 50% of the product: the rest is fat!“explains Nathalie Négro. The worst of the worst are the snail puff pastries”where there is on average only 15% to 20% meat…“
In addition, the “snails” sold on the market are often (much) too salty with 1.7 g of salt per 100 g on average. Bad when you suffer from high blood pressure or when you have a cardiovascular risk!
How to prepare snails for Christmas?
To lighten snails (and make them less bad for your health), is it better to prepare them yourself? Not really, answers Nathalie Négro: “it remains extremely greasy, and if you replace the butter with a less calorie vegetable substitute, you lose taste.”
Do you love snails but don’t want to put your health and your figure at risk? The dietician-nutritionist advises you to try other snail-based recipes, which are just as tasty but more balanced: “for example, oriental snails : it is a dish that consists of cooking snails in a very spicy broth (with herbs and spices) then accompanying them with tomatoes, onions and peppers.”
Other proposals: a snail pie (“use shortcrust pastry, it’s less greasy than puff pastry, and prepare your pie with snails, bechamel sauce and mushrooms” advises the expert) or a snail cake (“great as an aperitif, instead of the traditional ham or olive cake!“).
Thanks to Nathalie Négro, dietitian-nutritionist and head of the Nutritional Center of the Baths of Brides-les-Bains.
