The Giant African Land Snail Achatina fulica (Bowdich, 1720) as a Candidate Species for Bioregenerative Life Support Systems

The capability of snails to consume and convert inedible plant biomass and kitchen waste was tested. Inedible biomass of wheat and cabbage and also potato peels as a food were worse than lettuce, which is an ordinary feed for snails. In order to describe the growth of Achatina fulica its logistic function was fitted to the experimental data. It was found that calculated specific growth rate and carrying capacity, as constants of the logistic function, are 1.06 month-1 and 250 g of wet weight correspondingly. Mass ratio shell/whole body in terms of wet weight was 18-21 % irrespective of snail age. Snail meat was characterized by the low content of fat – 6.0 % DM. Essential fatty acids constituted 16.6 % of the total sum. Linolenic and linoleic acids dominated in a pool of essential fatty acids. The scores of essential amino acids, except sulfuric amino acids, exceeded 100 %. To estimate nutritious properties of snail meat, a computer program was developed. It was observed that the maximum intake of snail meat can reach 497 g/crewmember day. Addition of snail meat to a basic diet enabled increasing food independence of bioregenerative life support system to 97 %