This one feels like it has potential. We all know not to cook already dead blue crabs. But we cook stone claws that have been “dead” for awhile. We clean and use fresh 1/2 blue crab without the claws as bait. Seems wasteful. Is there any reason -health, DNR regs, anything -why we can’t set aside claws when splitting blues for bait and steam them within a reasonable amount of time?
dude all I can say with questionalbe food is Unless you are in starvation mode … don’t eat it.
As far as dead blue crabs if I’ve put them on ice and they die within a few hours and have stayed chilled they get eaten. That said I also clean my crabs before cooking. Since moving out of the house with dad a good few years ago I don’t cook whole uncleaned crabs.
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I think claws are probably fine, since what makes the dead crabs bad to eat its probably something inside the shell. Like Fred, I’ve also eaten blue crabs that have been put on ice and seemed dead. I would just google it and see what comes up.
Actually not a stupid question. I have always hated throwing claws away just because I was using the body for bait. I bet the claws would be fine if they were kept on ice until cooked. Anyone???
All my blues go directly on ice. If one happens to get submerged, it tends to die due from being overly cold. Since I know how the crab died and that it has been ice cold since it’s death, I eat em; always on the same day and usually within a couple hrs of catching them. Regardless, google the issue and you will find that crabs can drown in a bucket of water once the oxegen is used up. You don’t want to eat those. Also, if the crab is stressed out, like being in a bushhell basket with 100 other crabs in 90 degree weather for several hrs, they give off some kind of toxin. I don’t think it will kill you or anything, just makes for a foul crab. Finally, I would never eat a dead crab from the seafood market. I have never been delt blues that were not carefully inspected for life, but still, I have to be positive about the history of the crab. Oh, by the way, I eat a lot of crabs, never felt sick from any of them.
O.C.
“Junk always sounds best.”
About the claws, I’ve always heard if you put stonecrab claws on ice (or get them too cold) the meat sticks to the shell making it difficult to consume. I suppose it would do the same to a blue crab claw? But then again aren’t you supposed to put them in an ice bath prior to boiling to keep the claws from falling off during cooking?
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You can make “crab balls” to use as bait. You just get crushed up crab claws, shrimp, and other bait into a pantyhose if you are worried about eating the claws and being wasteful.
You can eat them even if they have been lying in the sun for a while. The point of boiling is to separate the meat from the shell, BUT as with cooking everything, the point of bringing the heat to a certain temp (each animal has different temps which are all readily available in any cookbook or online) is to kill bacteria. Play it safe and make sure it reaches an internal temp of 165 degrees. Obviously It’s a pain in the ass to temp a crab claw so just make sure your water is boiling. The point of keeping it on ice is that bacteria’s growth slows with the lower temp. However if there is a serious viral cell on the meat in question (and this goes for all meats BTW) sometimes it can’t be killed by high temp. However these are very rare, I believe a good example is ciguaterra but it’s been awhile since i took my sanitation course! For instance I was camping on capers island and couldn’t catch a fish for dinner so i found some whelchs and cooked them up, but i had had a little too much evan williams and decided to try the whole thing instead of just the foot. I woke up later with and upset stomach but didn’t vomit and was fine in an hour. Everyone freaks out about food being left out but I can tell you from experience that it’s just pre-cautionary, and if one does get sick, even to the point of vomitting, you’re usually fine the next day and just a bit dehydrated (ever been to a third world country or central america? same thing). DHEC has a strick set of rules to follow which can also be easily found online, but they also don’t recommend beef cooked below like 145 (not positive), I like my steak rare, and have never been sick bc of it. DHEC’s rules are scientifically the safest measurement one can take with food. In my opinion, go ahead and eat the claws or freeze them when you get home and you can make a stock or add them to a new catch later.