What happens when a crab goes bad? What happens when you eat a crab that has gone bad?

We all know that crab is a popular delicacy. It has various cooking methods, delicious taste, and high nutritional value. Many people like to eat crab. Crabs must be eaten alive and fresh, so that they will be more delicious. So what does it look like when crabs go bad? Let's take a closer look!

What does crab spoil like?

Spoiled crabs: Raw crabs smell like ammonia and are dark and black (these are generally not sold)

Spoiled steamed crabs: Look at the belly of the crab, if it is black, do not eat it.

If the crabs are spoiled and not fully steamed, eating them will cause vomiting and diarrhea at the mildest and acute gastroenteritis at the worst. When eating crabs, the lungs, stomachs, and hearts must be removed because these internal organs contain sand and bacteria.

When buying crabs, be sure to choose live crabs. Dead crabs cannot be purchased or eaten. Crabs like to eat animal carcasses and rotten food. There are often pathogenic bacteria and toxic debris in their gastrointestinal tract. Once they die, these bacteria will multiply in large numbers. In addition, crab meat contains more histidine. The longer the crab has been dead, the more histidine accumulates in the body. Histidine is a toxic substance. When it accumulates to a certain level in the human body, it will cause poisoning.

What are the requirements for choosing crabs?

Freshness

The most important thing to know when buying crabs is the freshness. If the crabs are not fresh enough, the taste is not the most important thing, but the stomach upset is the most important thing. To identify the freshness of crabs, you can first start with the crab's eyes. When you touch the crab's eyes gently, see if it is sensitive. Then see if the crab's mouth will continue to spray foam like beer, and finally move the crab's legs to see the reaction. These three steps can also indicate the freshness of the crab.

No matter which kind of crab it is, I recommend choosing ones with intact limbs. Try not to buy crabs with missing limbs.

Quality Assurance

The second most important factor in choosing crabs is quality assurance, and a basic common sense to ensure quality is to pay attention to the growth cycle of crabs. Crabs that are out of season are the least recommended. When buying crab roe, you can hold the crab up to the light and shine it. If the edge of the crab shell is very transparent, it means that the "vertex is not enough", that is, the crab is not full enough, and it is not cost-effective to buy the crab at this time.

Origin

Third, the quality of crabs is also related to the place of origin. For example, hairy crabs from Jiangsu are all named "clear water hairy crabs" because the clearness of the lakes is a major competitive advantage of the local area. Although crabs can also be raised in problematic water resources, if you pick up the crabs and smell them, you can smell the smell of bad water quality, which is the biggest characteristic of poor quality crabs. Because there is a lot of stench left on their gills, there is no way to clean them, so it is not recommended to buy them.

What parts of crabs can't be eaten?

Crab intestines

When eating crabs, don't rush to open its shell. The first thing we need to do is turn the crab over and touch its belly.

There is a crab navel in the crab's abdomen that can be opened. After opening the crab navel, you can see a black, slender object at the bottom, connected to the crab body.

This black object is the crab's intestines, which are full of crab excrement and are very dirty, so we can pull the entire crab navel out of the crab, so that the crab intestines can be cleaned.

Crab stomach

Then we open the crab's shell. The shell is full of crab roe, which makes people salivate!

However, there is something else hidden inside the crab roe. At the top of the crab's back shell, there is a small triangular capsule, which is the crab's stomach.

This part is hidden among the crab roe, and it is easy to eat it by mistake if you are not careful. There is a lot of mud and sand in the crab stomach, which tastes bitter and astringent, so it must be removed thoroughly.

Crab gills

For aquatic animals, most of them breathe through gills, and crabs are no exception.

Fish gills are not edible, and the gills of crabs are also not edible because they are the crab's respiratory system and are used to filter river water, so they are also very dirty.

Crab gills are very easy to find. On both sides of the crab body, there is a row of eyebrow-like objects with a spongy texture. These are the crab gills. We can pull them out by hand or cut them off with scissors.

Crab Heart

Finally, let’s talk about the crab’s heart. This part is very hidden, and most people probably don’t notice the existence of the crab’s heart when eating crabs.

The heart of the crab is a hexagonal gray sheet in the middle of the crab body. It is hidden under the black membrane of the crab body. You need to use chopsticks or a fork to poke through the black membrane to find the heart of the crab.

Crabs themselves are relatively cold food, and the crab heart is the coldest part of the crab. If you eat it, it can easily cause cold air to accumulate between the spleen and stomach, so it is best to remove it.