Snail Consumption Pattern in Ibarapa Central Local Government of Oyo State, Nigeria

Snails are very high in nutrients such as proteins, iron, and water, while being low in fat, therefore its consumption is popular in various countries around the globe and humans have been consuming snails for thousands of years. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the snail consumption pattern in Ibarapa Central Local Government Area of Oyo state Nigeria using standard structured questionnaire techniques and analyzing the data by descriptive statistics and multiple regression technique. Theresult showed Majority of respondents (56.6%) were female, result showed that 44.4% of the respondents’ were between the age of 31-40 and 59.6% were married and 53.5% of the household have the largest size. Also the result obtained from this study shows that Christian was dominant (55.6%) that consumed snail meat, this indicate that there is no religion barrier on the consumption of the snail meat thereby making snail meat more demanded in the study area. The result shows that snail meat prevent blood pressure, also Regression result showed that Age and health condition increases the rate at which snail is consumed in the study Area. Based on this result it is revealed that income, Taste, Price, Availability and Accessibility were the factor affecting snail consumption pattern in the study Area. Keywords: Heliculture, Archachatina marginata, Achatina achatina, snail consumption pattern