How much do you know about the little things regarding golden apple snails?

A few days ago, on a whim, I had the urge to post this unexpected byproduct of recently organizing my thesis materials, hoping it might also give a little push to my thesis progress, which has been sluggish lately. Since the Lunar New Year is approaching, for the first batch of articles to see the light of day I chose a little creature with an auspicious-sounding name that has nevertheless made farmers in Taiwan, China, turn pale at the mention of it for the past few decades: the golden apple snail, also known as the apple snail. In fact, the period during which their reputation in Taiwan, China, went from widely anticipated to reviled by everyone was not long at all; it was roughly a matter of just two or three years.

"Eat them, kill them, attack on both fronts." As the saying goes, a prairie fire cannot burn it all away; when the spring wind blows, it grows again. Facing the apple snail, which has a short growth period and breeds quickly, the ideal approach beyond doing everything possible to cull them is to encourage everyone to solve the problem by "eating" them. Just look at this exquisite color printing. Compared with the earlier black-and-white images, doesn't it look much more upscale? In an era when printing was generally still black-and-white, this was the premium treatment reserved only for important policies and information. But no matter how much of a glutton a gourmet might be, few could look at this table of "Golden Apple Snail Plum Blossom Meal" without feeling queasy.

I think perhaps people back then were stronger, or simply did not pay much attention to health preservation; otherwise, just a little claim about this creature's health benefits would probably have been far more effective than the plum blossom meal.