Crabs king crabs Health benefits and risks – Delicious, tasty and nutritious
If you are a fan of seafood, you are probably curious about the nutritional composition of shrimp meat, as well as what vitamins and minerals you can get while eating it on a salad or in a sandwich, for example. You can learn these and other facts about crabs if you have five free minutes. Enjoy reading!
Crabs (Cancer spp. Canceridae) are small crabs that can live in freshwater, sea and ocean waters. They usually hide under rocks, in cracks or in large mussels and shells of dead snails. Crab crabs are aggressive predators that pounce on their prey with their sharp tongs that literally cut through the flesh. It is interesting to know about them that they are able to regenerate their lost in hunting or battles with opponents limbs. The crabs have a round body covered with armor, bulging eyes, five pairs of limbs, the front pair of which changes into curved tongs.
Crabs have few edible elements. In fact, only 1/4 of the weight of crab crabs is edible. Suitable for consumption are the muscles under the armor of the forceps, the muscles in the limbs, the liver of the cancer and a white, creamy substance that is located under the upper armor of the cancer. Of the approximately 4,000 species of known crabs, the following species are particularly popular in cooking:
- Common Crab or Green Crab (Carcinus meanus): The most common species. He is a ruthless pursuer and moves in a very strange way. It has no particularly high commercial value due to its extremely small size. Used for bait by fishermen.
- Atlantic Crab (Cancer pagurus): Has a smooth brown shell. It inhabits sandy and rocky shores, but can descend to an underwater depth of almost 100 m. It has a characteristic strong taste and aroma.
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Velvet floating crab (Portunus puber): With its brown-red color, this covered with “hair” representative of the crabs can reach up to 15 cm in diameter of the armor. Its taste is delicious, which gives it a high price on the food market.
- Spider crab or also prickly crab (Maia squinado): Lives on sandy sea beds at a depth of up to 60 m. It has a triangular angular shell, and the color of its ex-armor varies from pink to reddish brown. It reaches 19 cm in length. Its meat is considered extremely tasty, but it is interesting to note that the female is many times more sought after because of its taste than the male.
- Snow Crab (Chionoecetes opilio): Its armor is almost round and its legs are long and flat. Its color varies according to when it hatched. Only the male specimens of the species are hunted because of their much larger size. They reach up to 12 cm in shell width and up to 1350 grams in weight. The snow crab lives in cold waters at a depth of 25 to 750 meters. Neglected by North American fishermen before, today the snow crab is considered a delicacy both in Europe and throughout Asia.
- Pacific Crab (Cancer megister): Lives in cold waters and belongs to the same family of rock crabs as the Atlantic crab. Reaches 22 cm in width and up to 1.8 kg. in weight. Its meat is popular and can be found on the market in frozen or canned form.
- Atlantic Blue Crab (Callinectes sapidus): Popular in the United States, it is not well known throughout Europe. In the United States, it accounts for 1/2 of the total crab catch. Its flesh has a sweet characteristic taste.
Table of Contents
Types of crab products
- Shrimp rolls and shrimp sticks: a delicacy made from minced shrimp meat, and sometimes unregulated from minced fish, minced shrimp and other leftovers from fish and crustaceans.
- Marinated crab meat – crab meat is sterilized with the marinade, which complements its exotic taste.
- Canned crab meat – most often, this is the cheapest form of crab meat. Canned foods range from natural to ready-made exotic dishes.
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Frozen pieces of crab – the meat is cleaned of exobron and unnecessary entrails.
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Whole frozen crabs
Nutritional composition of crab
Indicative content of substances in 100 g of raw food:
Product |
water in% | kcal | protein. / g | of fat. / g | digestible carbon / g | cholesterol. / mg | sugars / g | fiber / g |
Pacific crab |
79% | 84 | 18,2 | 0,6 | 0 | 42 | – | – |
Atlantic blue crab |
79% | 87 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 78 | – | – |
Snow crab 80% 90 18.5 1.2 0 55 |
80% | 90 | 18,5 | 1,2 | 0 | 55 | – | – |
Sample crab | 79% | 86 | 17,4 | 1 | 0 ,7 | 59 | – | – |
Health benefits
- It is rich in vitamins B3, B9 and especially vitamin B12. In fact, crabs are among the best sources of B12, with only 100 grams of them delivering 9 micrograms of the vitamin or 4.5 times the recommended daily dose.
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Health risks
People with allergies to crustaceans may have a hypersensitivity reaction to crab crabs.
How to choose and store crabs?
In our country crabs are most often bought in frozen or canned form. When buying frozen crabs, in ice, choose those that are not covered with frost or have dry armor. Cooked, crab meat can be stored for a day or two in the refrigerator and up to a month in the freezer.
Ideas for using crab meat :
Marinated: in salads, in sandwiches, in vegetable dishes
Our culinary offer:
olives, crabs, tomatoes and onions “> Olive, crab, tomato and onion salad
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