It might be weird for you at first, but actually you can get many health benefits from eating lizards as a part of your diet. In fact, most of the time, the consumption is for medical purposes rather than culinary purposes.
The nutrients inside this reptile are actually quite beneficial for human health, thus you might want to try eating something like monitor lizard out for yourself.
Lizards in Their Natural Habitat
Sometimes you may have even found lizards scattered around the garden at your house. This animal belongs to the same class as snakes: squamata.
However, their body structure is actually quite different from the snake as this animal has outer ear holes, as well as legs to move. Additionally, their eyelids can move, which is also different from snakes.
This animal is spread everywhere around the world and every continent has them. The reason is because this animal has a very important role in the environment’s food chain.
In this aspect, the lizard acts as the predator in the environment as they consume specific types of bugs and insects that are often harmful not only to humans but also to plants.
Most of the time, the bugs and insects that they consume are mosquitoes and other pest insects. This behavior will naturally prevent the spread of disease caused by those insects.
Lizard Meat As Food
Lizard meat has already been consumed for a long time, especially by Asian cultures. However, they still consider it as an extreme type of food to consume.
Even though it might not sound too delicious, you can actually find people in the Philippines, Thailand, China, and Indonesia cooking monitor lizard meat with special recipes.
Additionally, those countries usually have exotic food markets which provide many kinds of exotic food for sale, including lizard meat.
The people who consume this meat actually want to get the health benefits of eating lizards. Those nutrients are believed to be able to keep the body healthy and even act as a cure for many kinds of diseases.
There are even some reports that have found this meat to have amino acids as well as protein, which is beneficial for human health. Additionally, it contains important nutrients like histidine, tyrosine, trypthopan, and phenylalanine.
This meat contains large amounts of isoleucine nutrients, even more so than other animal products such as beef or milk. That is why lizard meat is considered to have great amounts of essential nutrients which are important for your body.
Tips When Cooking Lizard Meat
If you are interested in cooking this meat to get the health benefits of eating lizards, then you might want to know several tips such as:
- Cleaning the meat is very important. Remove the guts, then cut the head and anus off to clean it. Next step is to divide its body and cut off the legs.
- To avoid cross contamination, it’s a must to use a special cutting board for this meat.
- Before cooking it you must boil the meat for at least 20 minutes to remove bacteria and make the skin loose so you can remove it.
- Treat this meat as chicken wings, as you can actually cook it with any method you like.
15 Health Benefits of Eating Lizards
You might not realize it, but eating monitor lizards is actually very beneficial for your health as the meat contains various vitamins that support your body. Some of those benefits that you can get are:
1. Energy Source
Eating the lizard’s meat is actually the same as when you eat other types of meat, as this meat also contains energy. Inside every ounce of lizard meat, you will get 50 kcal, which is the same amount of energy that you can also get from every ounce of chicken meat.
That is why, when you want to fulfill your daily energy needs of around 1500 kcal, you might want to consume around 2 pounds of lizard meat. Yes, you can even use it to replace your regular chicken meat that you often consume.
2. Improving Stamina
These next health benefits of eating lizards still have some connection with the previous benefit. As you know by getting enough energy, that also means you will be able to improve your overall stamina.
The amino acids which are available inside this meat will help your body to repair itself, and it’s also an important nutrient that is needed by your body’s metabolism when producing energy.
It is important for you to have good stamina. especially when you want to do heavy duties such as working out. Thus you might want to improve your stamina by eating more lizard meat as a part of your diet.
3. Protein Source
Energy comes from many types of nutrients, such as fats and carbohydrates. But inside lizard meat, the energy comes from protein – thus, you can use this meat as your protein source.
Protein is a very important amino acid which is needed by the body to be able to properly function. Thus it’s a good thing for you to consume this meat as your protein source.
4. Asthma Symptoms Prevention
Asthma symptoms usually affect the respiratory system, so people who suffer from asthma will experience difficulty breathing when an attack occurs. Lizard meat is actually believed to cure the symptoms, so it can work well towards preventing attacks from happening.
These health benefits of eating lizards for asthma are possible because this meat contains a type of amino acid which is able to repair the respiratory muscles.
5. Epilepsy Medicine
In many Asian countries, the meat from lizards is used as a medicine for many kinds of disease. One of the most notable is the usage of this meat as epilepsy medicine. Epilepsy is a disorder of the neurological system.
The proteins available inside lizard meat can help the body to ease disorders of the neurological system, and causes the nerves to become much healthier. Thus, by eating this meat, it can help to remove the cause of epilepsy attacks.
6. Lowering Gland Related Disease Risk
There are many gland related diseases, which are very awful to have as the gland has an important duty in the human body. It is used as a regulator for different kinds of processes related to the immune system and metabolic function.
That is why it’s very important to keep your body’s gland system as healthy as possible, especially the lymphoid gland. You should not have to worry, as you can use the health benefits of eating lizards to boost the health and function of your glands, thus lowering the risk of gland-related disease.
7. Skin Disease Curer
Many types of reptiles are considered as skin disease curers, including lizard meat. Indonesian people often eat this meat when they want to cure diseases related to the skin, like psoriasis or eczema.
Sometimes the meat will be drained then ground to make it into powder, and put in a capsule as medicine.
8. Remove Acne
Acne is another skin related disease that can be cured by these health benefits of eating lizards. This meat can relieve inflammation caused by acne, and heal it. Besides consuming the meat, some people also apply the lizard’s blood as a curer.
9. Encourage Flatulence
Sometimes you may feel discomfort in your stomach caused by too much gas inside. You can reduce this discomfort by consuming lizard meat, as it encourages flatulence.
If excess gas is not removed from the body, then it may cause other issues that are worse than mere discomfort.
10. Maintain Digestive Health
Besides curing many types of digestive symptoms such as nausea or other discomfort, lizard meat is also able to maintain digestive health. The amino acids along with protein available inside this meat is useful to protect the lining of human stomach against ulcers.
11. Easing Stiffness on Muscle
Indonesian people often eat lizard meat during the night time, as there are many night market street food vendors that sell lizard meat.
Another reason is because by eating this meat, you will ease the stiffness in your muscles after working for the whole day. These health benefits happen because of the amino acid content inside the meat.
12. Disease Treatment
At first it may seem impossible, but lizard meat can also be used for disease treatment. This actually happened to a patient from Bogor in Indonesia. The doctor suggested this patient to consume lizard meat as the treatment.
The patient consumed this meat 3 times daily, and then 6 months later, the doctor repeated the examination. The doctor was shocked to find that the patient’s body had recovered.
13. Hemorrhoid Treatment
Another illness that can be treated using lizards is hemorrhoids. This illness is bleeding that happens inside the anal tract in the process of defecation. When you eat lizards, it will help to regulate bowel movements and protect the anus’s blood vessels.
14. Stroke Prevention
This disease is caused by problems in the cardiovascular and heart systems, and as a result the blood vessels located in the brain can be damaged. Hence, body parts connected to the brain can also be damaged or paralyzed.
To prevent this from happening, you might want to use the protein from lizards to maintain the health of your blood vessels, as well as prevent atherosclerosis.
15. Longevity
Lastly, you will get increased longevity by consuming lizard meat. This happened to a Bolivian man, as reported by the UK Daily Mail. He is already 123 years old, has sixteen grandchildren as well as thirty nine great grandchildren.
He reached that age because he consumes lizard meat regularly. He is actually still alive even today, and still able to take long walks daily.
Those are 15 health benefits of eating lizard meat.