Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Food Kingdom
Topics: Food and Drink, Social Media, YouTube, World News
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Food and Drink, Social Media, YouTube, World News
People are being left unable to look at crab sticks in the same way again after seeing how they're made.
If you're squeamish, look away now.
It's the run up to Christmas and that means only one thing - an influx of festive dos where party food is passed around on glittery trays.
And if you have a grandma like mine, a defrosted prawn ring with marie rose sauce is on the menu, as well as the classic crab stick.
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Alas, while you would happily chomp away on the pink and white sticks of sweet delight as a kid, you may never want to pick up a fishy finger ever again after you see how they're made.
Turn away now if you still want to clutch on to your childhood and faff-free snack option:
Look, we warned you, it's not pretty. Actually, it's not only just not pretty, it's pretty horrifying.
The footage - posted to YouTube by Food Kingdom - shows multiple Sebastian the crabs being plucked from the sea, however, fear not, because your beloved Little Mermaid Jamaican crab actually isn't, in fact, the true victim of the crab stick.
Let me break it down for you - if your stomach can handle it.
Well, instead of it being crabs used to make crab sticks - which we'd all presume, right? - the snack is actually made up of grey meat, which typically comprises of a species called Alaskan pollock.
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The fish is dragged from its comfy sea home, culled and then fed into a mixer, where it's mashed up, then churned up with other ingredients such as egg whites and wheat, which is then – you’ve guessed it – mixed up once again.
That creates a paste-like substance that is vaguely reminiscent of building putty or clay. Lost your appetite yet?
Well, the next step is to get that goo and feed it into a machine that creates just one long strip of meaty material, which is then spun together – woven like rope – to create the texture of crab or lobster meat.
Some of that stuff is then sold off as surimi or substitute crab meat, before other bits of it are coated in the orange coloured casing that you might associate with crab or lobster, then sold as crab sticks.
Obviously, loads of people aren’t happy with their new knowledge.
One YouTube user commented: "I will never purchase this ever again! Thank you for opening my eyes!"
Another said: "I always thought this stuff was disgusting, now I KNOW it is."
Not everyone was so discouraged, though.
Someone else said: "I love adding lots of mock crabmeat to my delicious pasta salad recipe. See, now y'all went and made me hungry!!!"
"To be perfectly honest, I like the product. It's very affordable and makes a very good cold crab salad,” said another.
What do you think?