Are Snails Beneficial or Harmful Insects? A Full Analysis of Toxicity and Diet

Snails are the most common mollusks on land, and they have high edible and medicinal value. Snails like to live in dark, damp environments rich in loose humus, hiding by day and coming out at night, and they fear direct sunlight most of all and are sensitive to their environment, so are snails beneficial insects or pests? Are they poisonous? What food do they eat?

The snail is a shelled mollusk that lives on land and is a terrestrial mollusk with very high edible, medicinal and health value. Its history of use as food and medicine already spans more than 2,000 years, and abroad it is also one of the world's seven popular wild game foods, ranking first among the world's four famous dishes.

Are snails beneficial insects or pests?

There are many kinds of snails; some are harmful, and some are beneficial.

To farmers, snails are pests because they eat crops. Snails feed on leaves and leaf stalks, and at the same time secrete mucus that contaminates seedlings. The wounds caused by their feeding can sometimes also trigger soft rot, causing leaves or seedlings to rot and die, bringing many difficulties to farmers' production. For crops, snails are pests and belong to agricultural pests.

But for the human body and for medicinal materials, they are absolutely beneficial. Snails have very high edible and medicinal value, and the snail is a high-protein food with balanced nutrition. The whole snail is a treasure, and it can be used to make many medicines

Snails can treat illnesses in people and have fairly good effects on treating high blood pressure, heart disease, arteriosclerosis, vasculitis and other diseases. Eating snails not only clears heat, reduces swelling, detoxifies, prolongs life and beautifies the skin, but can also effectively prevent and control common human conditions such as diabetes, pneumonia, emphysema and lung cancer, and can also greatly improve people's eyesight, appetite, sleep and sexual function. It is highly praised in the pharmacopoeias of famous physicians through the ages in our country, and is also admired by European and American countries. Especially in the longevity regions of the world, the United Kingdom and France, it has reached the point of “without snails there is no good dish, and without snails it does not count as a banquet,” and it is openly listed as first among the world's four famous dishes (namely snail, shark fin, dried scallop and abalone).

French researchers found that the content of metal pollutants in the digestive glands of snails is an important indicator reflecting the degree of soil pollution. By testing this indicator, soil and environmental pollution can be reported and prevented in a timely manner.

Questions such as whether snails are pests or beneficial insects are two-sided; looking at them from different angles will yield different results.

Are snails poisonous?

Most snails are poisonous. Snails are terrestrial shelled mollusks and have lived on Earth since extremely ancient times. Most snails are poisonous and cannot be eaten. In our country, about 11 species have edible value, such as the clouded agate snail (Achatina fulica), the tall round-mouthed snail, the Hainan hard snail, the wrinkled scar hard snail, the Jiangxi bradybaena snail, the Ma's bradybaena snail, the white jade snail and others. Around the world, the snails mainly used as food and artificially farmed are three kinds: the French snail, the garden snail and the agate snail.

What food do snails eat?

Snails hide by day and come out at night, like dark and damp places, fear light and heat, and mostly live in environments with overgrown weeds, lush trees and flourishing crops, as well as in humus-rich and loose soil, piles of dry grass, caves, and under branches, fallen leaves and stones. Their foraging range is very wide, and they mainly eat various vegetables, weeds, melon and fruit peels, and the leaves, stems, buds, flowers and juicy fruits of crops, as well as various green grass and green highland barley feeds, succulent feeds, bran-type feeds and cake meal-type feeds.

Natural enemies of snails

Many chickens, ducks, birds, toads, turtles, snakes and hedgehogs will eat snails as food, and fireflies mainly feed on snails. Generally, snails can live 2-3 years, and at most up to 7 years, but most may become food for other animals that same year.