An Australian man's dare has landed him in the hospital for a month so far, and it's hard to say how long it will be until he is well. He ate two raw slugs on a dare, and promptly contracted the rat lungworm parasite, which causes fatal brain swelling in humans (among other horrors).

 

It's tempting to try and eat a slug. (Oh wait - no it isn't!) After all, the French eat garden snails, and a snail is pretty much the same thing as a slug, right?

First of all, French snails are purged for a week before being cooked. This ensures that their digestive tracts are emptied of anything unpleasant, and that their mucus production is minimized. Second of all, the snails are then cooked in olive oil and garlic, and just about anything tastes good when it's been cooked in olive oil and garlic.

 

This Australian fellow might not have gotten sick if he had cooked his slug first. Slugs, along with a whole host of other Australian animals, can ingest the rat lungworm parasite when they accidentally eat rat feces. Rat lungworm has also cropped up in Thailand, thanks to a dish called koi-hoi which features raw snail. And in Hawaii, where several people have been sickened by eating lettuce leaves that harbored tiny slugs.

 

Of course, proper cooking destroys the parasite. As it will destroy any other biological contaminants that the slugs may contain. Slugs, being scavengers, find themselves wandering through some pretty messy areas, and can pick up salmonella, e. coli, and other food-borne illnesses.

 

However, cooking a slug will not neutralize any other toxins it may have ingested. Slugs are particularly fond of eating mushrooms. As you know, many wild mushrooms are extremely toxic, and these toxins can lodge in the slug's system, making it just as poisonous. Slugs also enjoy flowers (as all gardeners know), and they can contain fatal levels of digoxin if they have nibbled on foxgloves. Slugs may also have eaten heavy metals, slug poison, and a lot of other toxic stuff. 

 

The good news is that slugs are not inherently poisonous themselves. In theory if you could be sure that your slug hadn't eaten anything poisonous, and you cooked it well, you could snack away. Evolutionarily speaking, a slug is just a clam that's lost its shell and oozed slowly onto dry land. This lends me to think that beer-battering and deep-frying may be the way to go. Here is a recipe for slug fritters (scroll down) if you should wish to give it a try.