CATDOLL : CATDOLL: The difference between sea cucumbers raised in captivity and cages

1. The difference between sea cucumber farming and cage farming

The bottom legs of wild sea cucumbers are short and strong, while the bottom legs of captive sea cucumbers have poor adhesion and are slender.

The meat of wild sea cucumbers is thick and elastic, while the meat of captive sea cucumbers is soft and not firm.

Wild sea cucumbers are generally black-gray in color, while captive sea cucumbers are generally gray.

Wild sea cucumbers are short and fat, while captive sea cucumbers are relatively slender.

1. The difference between captive sea cucumbers and caged sea cucumbers

1. Cage culture is one of the captive sea cucumber farming modes.

2. Captive sea cucumbers are usually placed in shrimp ponds or hanging cages. When the sea cucumbers reach the harvest standard, the hanging cages or fishing nets are pulled out of the water to complete the harvest.

2. The difference between captive and wild sea cucumbers

1. Bottom feet: Wild sea cucumbers live in sea areas with a depth of about 20m. They mainly find food through their bottom feet. At the same time, they also need to avoid being washed away by undercurrents. Therefore, the bottom feet of wild sea cucumbers are short and strong. Captive sea cucumbers live in shallow water areas and have sufficient food. Therefore, the bottom feet have poor adhesion and gradually become slender.

2. Meat quality: The meat of wild sea cucumbers is thick and elastic, with wide and full tendons, while captive sea cucumbers grow fast and have soft and not firm meat.

3. Appearance: Wild sea cucumbers are spindle-shaped, thick in the middle and pointed at both ends, short and fat, while captive sea cucumbers are relatively slender.

4. Color: Wild sea cucumbers are generally dark gray, with a darker color, while captive sea cucumbers are generally gray.

5. Cooking resistance: Wild sea cucumbers are extremely resistant to cooking, and after cooking, the body of the sea cucumber is elastic, the meat is tough and chewy, and the taste is good. However, captive sea cucumbers are not resistant to cooking. Once cooked for too long, they will become soft and the meat will lack toughness.

2. The characteristics of sea cucumbers in the north and south

Modern scientific research has shown that sea cucumbers contain more than 50 nutrients that are beneficial to human physiological activities, including extremely high protein content, 18 kinds of amino acids, taurine, chondroitin sulfate, sea cucumber mucopolysaccharides and other ingredients. Protein accounts for more than 55% of dried sea cucumbers, and also contains fat, sugar, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, as well as nutrients such as calcium, phosphorus, and iron, and does not contain cholesterol. Sea cucumbers are listed as top delicacies due to their rich nutrition and are one of the famous "eight delicacies of seafood" in my country.

Where are the origins of sea cucumbers in my country?

1. Liaoning Sea Cucumber Liaoning Sea Cucumber is referred to as "Liao Sea Cucumber". It is mainly produced in Dalian, which is a long-standing sea cucumber production and breeding base in my country. In the Ming Dynasty, "Compendium of Materia Medica" pointed out that "sea cucumbers produced in Liaohai are good." Due to environmental and climatic reasons, Liao Sea Cucumber grows slowly and takes about 3-5 years to grow. Therefore, the meat is thick and full and rich in nutrients.

2. Shandong Sea Cucumber

Shandong sea cucumbers are called "Lu sea cucumbers". The main production areas are Qinghai, Yantai and Weihai, which are also one of the most important sea cucumber production and processing bases in my country. Shandong has a long history of cooking sea cucumbers. "Scallion-fried sea cucumber" is the most famous dish in Shandong cuisine. Located in the Bohai Sea area, the growth environment of Shandong sea cucumbers is almost the same as that of Liaohai sea cucumbers, and it takes 3-5 years for an individual to grow.

3. Fujian Sea Cucumbers Fujian is the main production area of ​​sea cucumbers in the south, but since the main production area of ​​sea cucumbers is in the north, most of the sea cucumbers in Fujian are "raised in the south", that is, high-quality sea cucumber seedlings are introduced from Liaoning and other places, and the climate and environmental advantages of Fujian and other places are used to make sea cucumbers grow quickly. Fujian Xiapu has become the "sea cucumber capital" in the south.

4. Imported sea cucumbers There are only a few countries in the world that eat sea cucumbers, only a few East Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea, while European and American countries do not eat sea cucumbers. Therefore, when domestic wild sea cucumber resources are exhausted, more and more people are looking abroad. Foreign sea cucumbers are basically wild and have no breeding costs, so the price is lower than domestic sea cucumbers.

Characteristics of Southern Farmed Ginseng

When many people buy sea cucumbers, they are told by the merchants, "We have authentic northern sea cucumbers here." Consumers who don't know much about sea cucumbers often wonder, what are the characteristics of southern sea cucumbers compared to northern sea cucumbers? Please see the following analysis by Sea Cucumber Jun:

1. Low breeding cost means low market price

The growth cycle of sea cucumbers cultured in hanging cages in the south is short, the growth rate is fast, and the output and scale are large. This type of sea cucumber mainly grows by artificial feeding of kelp and other feeds. Due to the low breeding cost, the market price is the lowest compared to the bottom-seeded sea cucumbers and pure wild sea cucumbers in the north.

2. Cylindrical and thick skin, similar to a rolling pin

This is a major feature of sea cucumbers farmed in the south. This aspect can be used to determine whether it is a sea cucumber farmed in the south. At the same time, due to the farming method, environment, feeding and other reasons, the skin of sea cucumbers is thicker than that of sea cucumbers farmed in the north. This has also led to many unscrupulous sellers taking a short video or a few photos and falsely claiming that they are northern bottom-seeded sea cucumbers for sale!

3. Long gastropods have low nutritional value

The environment for breeding sea cucumbers in the south is mainly in hanging cages, where there are no waves on the seabed, so their gastropods are particularly long. Because most of the breeding methods are shed breeding, the breeding methods add relatively more drugs and feed during the breeding process of sea cucumbers, which greatly reduces the nutritional value of individual sea cucumbers.

4. The meat is loose and has a bad taste and a strong fishy smell.

The sea cucumbers farmed in the south are mainly fed with feed and live on the water surface, so their taste must be very poor. If they are fed with kelp and other feed for a long time, their taste must be bad. Compared with the sea cucumbers in the north, they have a stronger fishy smell and a special fishy smell, which is related to the fresh fish feed they are fed during farming!

3. Experience in sea cucumber cage farming. Please share your experience with those who have farming experience.

The cage suspension method is adopted for breeding: a group of cage frames used for breeding fish are selected as the carriers for breeding sea cucumbers. Each cage is 3 m×3 m, with bamboo as the support frame. Each cage is suspended in 5 rows, with 6 cages in each row and 5 layers in each cage.

4. Identification of Sea Cucumber

The sad truth

Sadly, the chances of you being able to buy wild sea cucumbers are 1%, for the following reasons:

Low yield: The yield of wild sea cucumbers is scarce. According to statistics, wild sea cucumbers in Changhai County only account for 1% of the sea cucumber industry, which means that 99% of people eat farmed ginseng.

Expensive: Wild ginseng is very expensive and consumers cannot afford it for a long time, so they can only look for cheap ginseng.

Merchants’ reasons: Merchants are reluctant to sell wild ginseng because there is no effective sales channel (most customers cannot afford it), and sales are low, so there is no money for advertising. If you can find any merchant, nine out of ten will be advertising (according to statistics, the promotion fee is high, and if you sell wild ginseng, the cost is very high and you will lose a lot of money).

Overview of False Sea Cucumber

1. Characteristics of Southern Fujian Sea Cucumbers (Cage Culture Technology)

The thorn type is overall bald;

Sea cucumbers are cylindrical (the middle and both ends are equally thick), mostly slender, and the dried sea cucumbers are generally tilted upwards;

Although the sea cucumber has a lot of meat and thick texture, it has poor elasticity! Once it is soaked and expanded, it turns gray and white;

The suction cups on the bottom of the feet of sea cucumbers cultured in southern hanging cages are small and slender.

Fujian Sea Cucumber

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2. Characteristics of shallow sea farming sea cucumbers (farming in dams at the seaside)

The thorns are thin and long, sharp and curved;

The meat is slightly chewy;

It is usually available in the market within a year and a half.

Shallow sea farming sea cucumber

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3. Farmed sea cucumbers

It has certain characteristics of northern ginseng, and was pulled to the south to reduce its growing time.

Characteristics of wild sea cucumbers

Wild sea cucumbers may not look very good, but they are actually more natural;

Wild sea cucumbers are thick in the middle and thin at both ends, and are spindle-shaped;

Wild sea cucumbers have thick roots, blunt spines, and inverted triangle shapes.

The meat is chewy and bouncy.

This is because sea cucumbers will change color depending on their growing environment. The seabed is complex, and sea cucumbers will change color in order to survive. The environment for farmed sea cucumbers is the same, so generally there will not be much difference in color.

There are exceptions in sea cucumbers. When identifying, you cannot just take a dried sea cucumber and think it is a southern Fujian sea cucumber because of its short spines. You must take out a batch of dried sea cucumbers and identify them as a whole.

From the pictures above, it can be clearly seen that the longer the spines of farmed sea cucumbers are, the better they look. Many people do not understand this and think that the longer the sea cucumber spines are, the better. In fact, this is not the case.

Wild Sea Cucumber

Identification of Dried Sea Cucumber

Dried sea cucumber types

Depending on the processing technology, it can be divided into light dried sea cucumber, salt dried sea cucumber and sugar dried sea cucumber.

Dried Sea Cucumber

Processed according to traditional techniques, the salt content should be between 5% and 10% as required by the state, so that the nutrients are more completely retained.

Salt dried sea cucumber

After taking out the salted sea cucumbers, they are dried and dried in the sun. During this period, salt is added to them to increase their shelf life.

Sugar Dried Sea Cucumber

Sugar-dried sea cucumbers are fake. The state has expressly prohibited the use of additives other than salt in the processing of sea cucumbers.

Salt dried sea cucumber

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Salt dried sea cucumber

Salt dried sea cucumber

Salt dried sea cucumber

Sugar Dried Sea Cucumber

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Sugar Dried Sea Cucumber

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Sugar Dried Sea Cucumber

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Sugar Dried Sea Cucumber

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Identification method

1. Color

Dried sea cucumbers are usually brown, yellow, brown, and dark brown.

Salt-dried sea cucumbers usually have obvious salt grains or salt foam on the surface, so the overall appearance is white or grayish, and the texture and wrinkles of the sea cucumber cannot be clearly seen.

Sugar-dried sea cucumbers are usually shiny black and look very good because of the addition of sugar and dyeing.

Because good processing technology will retain the original color of the sea cucumber.

2. Appearance

Lightly dried ginseng is drier and feels harder, and the thorns are hard and prickly;

Low-quality sea cucumbers and sugar-dried sea cucumbers feel very soft.

3. Weight

When weighing sea cucumbers of the same size, it was found that the sugar-dried ones were the heaviest and the light-dried ones were the lightest;

This point needs to be identified through experience.

Specifications of Dried Sea Cucumber

The largest size is about 500 grams per 30 heads;

The large size is about 40-50 pieces per 500 grams;

The medium specification is about 60-80 heads per 500 grams;

Small specifications are 500 grams per 100 heads or more.

4. Smell

A good sea cucumber smells lightly of seafood.

The smell is very sensory. If you have never smelled a good sea cucumber, no matter how much you say, you will never understand what the sea smells like. The official website provides wild sea cucumber tasting packages, which are suitable for ginseng lovers who want to compare and taste sea cucumbers.

It is not possible to explain in just a few words whether sea cucumbers are adulterated or not. It also involves the question of how much has been added. Some are easy to identify, while others are difficult to identify. Therefore, Xiaojing recommends that everyone purchase from official channels to reduce the risk of being deceived.