Can You Still Eat a Dead Chinese Mitten Crab? Four Tricks to Tell If It's Dead and Avoid Poisoning

With crisp autumn air, the best season of the year for eating Chinese mitten crabs has arrived again. Since Chinese mitten crabs are shipped from Yangcheng Lake in Jiangsu, some crabs inevitably die during transport. So can you still eat a dead Chinese mitten crab? Will eating one cause poisoning? How can you tell whether a Chinese mitten crab is dead? The details are as follows:

1. Can you still eat a Chinese mitten crab after it dies?

1. Normally, it can be eaten in this situation, but people with weak and cold spleens and stomachs are generally not suited to eating it. When a crab is alive, it is a cold-natured food; if it is dead, its cold nature is even stronger, and it will breed bacteria, easily causing diarrhea.

2. First, you must determine how long it has been dead. If you know, then of course it can be eaten, but if the time is unknown, it is best not to eat it, because it may produce toxins.

3. Generally, when a crab dies, it is not recommended for consumption, because the higher a food's protein content, the faster the protein denatures; eating it easily causes diarrhea. Foods such as sea shrimp and crabs are all required to be eaten fresh, not kept past the meal, and certainly not eaten overnight.

The above is the doctor's advice.

2. Will eating a dead Chinese mitten crab cause poisoning?

Eating a dead Chinese mitten crab can cause mild poisoning and lead to diarrhea.

If a crab dies naturally, the toxins in its body multiply, and these toxins also break down the crab meat. As for crabs you cook yourself, they have already eliminated the toxins in their bodies, and they have also gone through high heat, which effectively stops the spread of bacteria and does a better job of killing them. Also, after the water boils, cook them for another 20 minutes or so; only then can the pathogens inside the crab meat be killed. Crab meat is very delicious. But if a crab died because of improper storage, just send it straight to the trash can, for your own health and for your family's health.

3. Four tricks to tell whether a Chinese mitten crab is dead!

1. Smell the odor

A live Chinese mitten crab has the fishy smell of aquatic grass, while a dead crab has an amine odor.

2. Look at the eyes

When a live Chinese mitten crab's eyes are touched, they move on their own, while a dead crab's eyes do not move by themselves.

3. Look at the crab legs

Use your hand to stretch out a Chinese mitten crab's small legs. If they pull back when stretched, it means the crab is alive.

4. Blowing bubbles

Crabs breathe with gills. When a crab leaves the water, it expels part of the water from its gills on both sides of its mouthparts. After contact with air, a certain amount of oxygen dissolves into it, and it is then inhaled into the body through the small openings below the mouthparts to obtain oxygen. When there is relatively little water in the gills, more air is inhaled, and what is exhaled is a mixture of a small amount of water and air, which becomes bubbles one by one. So put the crab into half a basin of water; a crab that blows bubbles is still alive.

Summary: If a Chinese mitten crab dies, it is best not to eat it, because it will produce toxic substances. Generally, overnight seafood cannot be eaten, so everyone needs to pay attention.