# Do crab gills-"dead man's fingers," really make you ill if you eat them? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 23, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206 "2003-08-23T19:44:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/21 "2016-03-07T04:16:57Z")
> [@SoulSearching](#): > > You have to cook a LIVE crab or else you’ll get sick??? > [@BiblioCat](#): > > Yes, when you steam them, they _must_ be alive. Any that are dead should be thrown out. All of my crabs are dead when I boil them. But I eat Dungeness crabs, and I kill them and clean them immediately before cooking them. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Redfishhunter930](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Redfishhunter930](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfishhunter930)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/22 "2016-03-07T14:40:43Z")
To add more than likely not from Maryland > **[Sorry, Marylanders. Your Crab Is a Lie.](https://slate.com/business/2013/09/maryland-crab-isn-t-from-maryland-chesapeake-crab-is-a-lie.html)** > > Over Labor Day weekend I went for a visit with my wife and her family to the vacation house of some friends of theirs down on the Gulf Coast of... ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/23 "2016-03-07T15:13:58Z")
I grew up crabbing the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays and their estuaries. Kept wet and shaded, the Blue Claw Crabs will live for hours. You need to move them to ice temporarily or permanently after a few hours. Dead crabs go limp. You’ll know them quickly; you’ll discard them. Healthy ones stay for hours in bushels… and are often transported a hundred miles inland and sold live. It’s common to buy live, road-side Blue Claws 100 miles in-land in summer. That speaks to their durability. Some won’t make it. You toss them. For pros, their crabs are kept in pots, and they harvest the pots/crabs, but in bushels, moist and shaded, you have hours to go. For really long durations, you drop the crabs you caught back into the water, in buckets, lidded with holes drilled in it. Now you can burn 12 hours without concern, then you haul them in and have several more hours out of water before they’re dead. You can freeze crabs if time is running out and you opt to not cook them. 40+ years of crabbing with trot lines, pots, boats, piers, etc. (Heck, I’m 48. Been crabbing since I was 4… so I’ve been crabbing… too long!) . ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/24 "2016-03-07T16:00:59Z")
> [@donkeyoatey](#): > > WTF is up with the moderation here lately? > Ever hear of thread drift? There’s been no moderation in this thread. And unless someone decides to report some posts, there won’t be. Now back to discussing parts of crabs you shouldn’t eat. I vote for all of them, but I suppose that doesn’t really meet GQ requirements. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/25 "2016-03-07T16:43:23Z")
One question is whether to eat the Blue Crab mustard. This [webpage](https://www.bluecrab.info/cooking_faq.htm) has info, but seems out of date: > [@](#): > > **Q:** What is the yellow stuff inside a cooked crab? Some people call it “mustard.” Is it fat? > > **A:** Contrary to popular belief, the “mustard” (or the “green gland” or “tomalley”) is not fat, it’s actually the crab’s hepatopancreas, a main component of the crab’s digestive system. > > The hepatopancreas is a gland made up of very small branched tubes (ramified tubules) located on both sides of the mid-gut in the main body cavity directly under the top shell and functions as both liver and pancreas. It is involved in producing digestive enzymes and is responsible for filtering impurities from the crab’s blood. > > The “mustard” has a strong taste and is eaten by many people who consider it a delicacy. > > **Caution:** Research shows that chemical contaminants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin, mercury, and poison-inhalation hazards (PIHs) accumulate in the crab’s fatty tissues and concentrate in the hepatopancreas. The contaminants, which are colorless, odorless and tasteless, and can increase one’s chance of developing cancer, neurological impairments and miscarriage. Women of child-bearing age and children under the age of 5 are at particular risk. > > Crabs caught in advisory areas may contain high levels of these contaminants. If you catch crabs in these areas, it is highly recommended that you eat no more than six blue crabs per week and do not consume the “mustard” or cooking liquid. > > Eating, selling or harvesting blue crabs from the Newark Bay Complex (Newark Bay, Hackensack River, Passaic River, Arthur Kill and Kill Van Kull, and all tributaries to these waterbodies) is prohibited! > > In Maryland, blue crabs were sampled in several areas back in 1994-95, including the Chester, Bush and Gunpowder Rivers, Baltimore Harbor, Colgate Creek, Ft. Armistead, Old Road Bay, and Curtis Bay, and the Patapsco River. With the exception of the Middle and Northwest Branches of the Patapsco River, blue crabs were found to be generally low in contaminants. However, “generally low” is not the same as zero. When it comes to your health, it is strongly recommend that you avoid the “mustard”. I love the stuff, but I only get the chance to eat crabs rarely nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/26 "2016-03-07T19:15:03Z")
> [@donkeyoatey](#): > > WTF is up with the moderation here lately? > Ever hear of thread drift? > > > [@Blake](#): > > > > The original question was answered 13 years ago. Do you really think allowing the thread to drift onto an associated topic is a major problem at this stage? I read this as a whoosh, FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/27 "2016-03-07T19:19:14Z")
There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them. There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Always wondered what the shepherds called them. ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/28 "2016-03-07T19:58:31Z")
\ > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Always wondered what the shepherds called them. Well, here’s a hint: the plant in question is widely regarded as most likely being [Orchis mascula](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchis_mascula), the early-purple orchid, whose scientific name translates as “virile testicles” (probably because of the shape of the root). According to [this guy](http://blog.inkyfool.com/2010/06/grosser-grocer.html), common names over the centuries have included “dogstones” (where stones = rocks = balls), “dog’s cods” (think cod as in codpiece), “cullions” (Merriam-Webster: “from Latin _coleus_, scrotum”) and “fool’s ballocks”. I don’t think anyone knows which of these Shakespeare had in mind, but any of them would suit his sense of humor to a T… \ Freshly dead crab may be perfectly fine from a health perspective, but in my (admittedly limited) experience it seems that crabs/lobster/crayfish/etc that were kept on ice postmortem for a couple of hours are never quite as good in flavor or texture as those that met their maker just before dinner. Might be psychological, though… ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206/29 "2016-03-07T21:07:46Z")
My experience is with West coast Dungeness crab. Both as a sport crabber and a former employee of a reduction plant that used to process crab shells and waste. Crabs tend to ammoniate very quickly once they are dead. By ammoniate I mean putting off a level of ammonia that smells like mom mopping the kitchen floor. Hours, not days. This is what kills the other crabs on shows like the Deadliest Catch. A dead crab left in the hold will ammoniate and kill the other live crabs. We aren’t talking about a similar seafood product that is dead but has been held on ice. Fish are fine, crabs destroy themselves internally, very quickly. I would never cook a “recently dead” crab, only those that are alive when I cook them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-crab-gills-dead-mans-fingers-really-make-you-ill-if-you-eat-them/197206.md?page=1)