Parts of a Blue Crab You Shouldn’t Eat! (With Images)

After today, you won’t have to wonder about what parts of a crab you can and can’t eat. I went crabbing down in Easton, MD to crack open a crab and show you what parts you can and can’t eat.

So, let’s start with a quick summary of what parts of a crab you shouldn’t eat.

You should never eat a crab’s gills (also called lungs or dead man’s fingers), intestines, and mouth. These are found under the top shell and are scraped away when picking a crab. You will also find a crab’s hepatopancreas here, more commonly called the mustard, which is safe to eat in moderation.

Everyone loves a quick answer, but I want to walk you through how to get from an unopened crab to the parts you need to remove, and how to correctly remove them.. So, let’s walk through me picking a crab and go over what parts you should not eat.

See what parts of a crab I throw away.

Here’s the poor guy I caught this morning. He was a heavy, muddy crab with a dark bottom. This mean’s he hasn’t shedded his shell in a while, which means he is more meat-dense. Believe it or not, crabbers can tell how much meat is in a crab just by looking at it’s shell! Read my article: Here’s How to Tell Whether a Crab is Hollow or Full of Meat if you’re curious how.

First, remove the crab’s apron and shell.

Starting off, the crab’s apron and shell has got to go. This is the little flap on the bottom that indicates whether a crab is a male or female. I’m cleaning a male in this article, but be sure to read this article where I go over the difference between a male and female crab. Some people take the legs off first, but I always take the shell off first. It will make showing the inside parts you cant eat much easier.

Start by taking a knife or your finger nails to the stem of the apron to separate it from the crab’s underbelly. Once it’s flapped open, pull it down and pinch where it connects to the shell. Slowly pull down and remove it from the crab. See the images below:

The apron is always removed from the crab before eating, sometimes even soft shell crabs where you eat the shell! If you’re curious how you can eat a whole soft shell crab, I explain how in my article: Yes, You Eat the Whole Soft Shell Crab. (I’ll Explain How).

Now, you need to remove the top shell from the body. By removing the apron, we can easily remove the top of the shell to get to the unwanted innards. Place your thumb between where the apron connected to crab’s underbelly to its top shell, and lift from one of the corners. See the video below:

With that, the crab’s shell is off and you’re ready to start picking! You may find some mustard in the crab’s shell, which despite controversy is edible and safe to eat in moderation. Check out my article: What’s the yellow stuff in crabs? where I prove it.

Remove the mouth of the crab.

Removing the mouth makes things simpler when we pick the crab for meat. You’ll find it on the front of the crab, right under where the eyes used to be. Take a second to watch the video below:

The first thing we don’t eat: The Gills.

The first item we don’t eat is the crab’s gills. The get the bad reputation of being toxic because they act as a filter for impurities a crab may breathe in. Be rest assured that any parasite or bacteria in the crab is killed when cooked, but it doesn’t make the lungs edible. They taste bad, have no meat, have poor texture, and if you’re caught munching on them people will look at you funny. So, we avoid this part of the crab.

The crab’s lungs, also known as gills or dead man’s fingers, mirror each other under a crab’s top shell. Use a utensil or your finger to scrape these off and throw them away.

Remove the crab’s guts.

The last bit of crab we want to remove is its guts, digestive system, organs, whatever you want to call it. Every table at a crab feast uses a different term, but they all agree you should never eat it for the same reason we don’t eat lungs. Crabs live in dirty environments and their body works to remove any parasites they pick up. Cooked or not, you don’t want to eat those parts!

To remove the guts, take your finger or the end of a butter knife and scrape through the cavity between the lungs towards the crab’s mouth. Some people rinse the crab under water to do this, but you’ll find out that all the seasoning on the crab gets washed away with it. See me scrape away the guts in the video below:

Now, you only have meat and cartilage!

At this point you removed all the guts and gills, which are things we don’t eat from a crab. A crabber would call this a “cleaned” crab. Sometimes people do this before cooking a crab to be more humane, it just takes longer and is more common South of the Chesapeake Bay.

I guess people have more patience there. We Marylanders just throw them in a pot and steam em’!

From this point on you can pick at the crab’s shell and legs for its meat. The only thing you have to look out for its the crab’s cartilage. It’s a thin, faintly-white colored mass that is between the crab meat. It’s harder than the meat so you’ll be able to tell the difference as you pick the crab. Just remember, if its harder than the rest, don’t eat it!

The most prominent piece of cartilage in a crab is behind its pincher claw in the arm. I forgot to film this part, but take a look at the video I found below of someone cleaning a blue crab claw: