Octopus: benefits and harm to the body

Octopus is a many-legged creature, a predator that lives in the depths of the sea. The name is of Greek origin, translated into Russian as "eight legs." Octopuses are from the genus cephalopods. For a long time, fame has been glorified about them as monsters attacking sea vessels and carrying them to the bottom. In fact, among 300 species of octopus, none have such bloodthirsty inclinations.

The Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean are the main places of registration of these sea creatures. The most prominent part of an octopus is its tentacles, reaching up to 90 cm, while the body is 25 cm or slightly more. The total weight of an adult is about 10 kg.

The life expectancy of an octopus in natural conditions is mainly 2-3 years. But sometimes there are 4-year-olds, who can be considered long-livers. With the property of changing color, it resembles an earthly chameleon. True, the color of the marine life depends not only on the environment, but also on his mood. The color of the octopus depends on it: fear makes it turn white, anger turns red, and at rest it is brown.

The history of mankind has numerous evidence of the knowledge of ancient people about this creature and the use of its meat in food. After all, it, having undergone heat treatment, becomes mouth-watering, soft and tender, and in color - cream or pinkish.

What is the difference between octopus and squid

Although both sea creatures belong to the genus cephalopods, the difference between them is significant. An elongated body shape resembling a cigar, a head isolated from the body, a larger number of tentacles (10 vs. 8) are the characteristics of the squid.

The octopus has a bell-shaped body with four pairs of tentacles. He prefers to crawl along the bottom of the sea, without rushing, even imposingly. Squid moves in the water column jerking like a rocket.

During the hunt, the octopus masters in disguise, waiting for a moment convenient for the attack. His opponent, by contrast, is fast and swift.

Both cephalopods can change color, but for various reasons. The color of an octopus is an indicator of mood, while the squid has a camouflage means to change in case of danger. He has an advantage over his fellow: he can glow. Bioluminescence is the result of the functioning of special mollusk organs.

Octopuses by way of life are loners, ascetics, squids have a flocking way of life.

Composition and calorie content

Octopus meat is consumed only after a good heat treatment. She makes him soft and gentle, because he has many admirers. This product attracts with its abundance of vitamins, minerals, low calorie content.

1. Omega-3 took the first place among the substances necessary for humans with its 350 mg. Plus to the above: cholesterol - 48 mg, vitamins A, E, K, PP and group B, indispensable for human health. Of no less importance among them is choline. It feeds the brain and nervous system. B12 is an essential vitamin that helps synthesize DNA and myelin.
2. Iodine, antioxidants, namely selenium, zinc, cobalt, occupy a lot of space in the meat of this seafood. Selenium counteracts the development of cancer cells, strengthens the cardiovascular system.Together with vitamin E, it creates antibodies that help strengthen the body's immune system.
3. A person who regularly uses seafood, octopus meat, is not threatened by anemia, dermatitis, nail pathology, increased growth of existing tumors. Zinc counteracts all this. Its role in combating infectious diseases and increasing the protective properties of the body is great.
4. Phosphoric acid is the main building element in the combination of enzymes, due to which chemical reactions occur in the cells of the human body.
5. Cobalt promotes the metabolism of fatty acids, carbohydrates and folic acid. It is necessary in the normalization of blood sugar, the work of the heart and blood vessels.
6. Amino acids are represented by glycine, lysine, valine, tyrosine, methionine.
7. Glycine helps reduce stress and increase mental ability.
8. Lysine will help people suffering from frequent rashes of herpes in the fight against the disease, it also helps to absorb proteins.
9. Tyrosine is a fighter with a decrease in brain performance, depression and chronic fatigue, hypotension and vegetovascular dystonia.
10. Methionine protects the liver from pathogens.

The usefulness of octopus meat is becoming more important due to its low calorie content - 82 kcal per 100 g of product. The content of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in it is slightly higher than 18 g, where proteins occupy a significant part - almost 15 g.

The large composition of nutrients in octopus meat and low calorie content make the product sought after not only by gourmets, but also by those who are concerned about their health.

What is useful octopus

General benefit

The usefulness of an octopus is determined by its beneficial effects on human health:

• pressure normalization;
• skin health improvement;
• energy saturation (important for hard physical work);
• strengthening the pancreas and digestive system;
• the fight against tumors, aging, anemia, asthma and bronchitis.

For women

The fair sex, most concerned about the problems of prolonging youth and skin condition, octopus meat will be one of the first helpers. The female figure will acquire the forms she needs when eating dishes from this mollusk. Meat is also beneficial for the reproductive function of women.

For men

In addition to the beneficial effects of all octopus components on health, men with regular use of the product will find an increase in muscle mass.

During pregnancy

The use of octopus meat in small portions is beneficial for expectant mothers because of the huge amount of omega-3 acids, vitamins and minerals contained in it.

When breastfeeding

The lactation period cannot be a prohibition for the use of a product in food if it does not cause a negative reaction of the body in the child and mother. However, moderation in such food and expert advice will help to avoid serious health complications.

For kids

6-8 years - the age at which such an exotic product in the absence of an allergic reaction can be extremely useful. Strengthening bones, tooth enamel, improving brain function - all this happens under the influence of the beneficial substances of octopus meat. The product is especially useful when changing milk teeth with molars.

The period of active growth of the child is the time at which the use of an octopus is especially welcome. The product helps in stimulating brain activity, strengthening memory, and developing children's intelligence.

When losing weight

Due to its high protein content, low amount of fats and carbohydrates, octopus meat is ideal for those who want to lose weight without much sacrifice, for example, without giving up red meat.

Exotic mollusk meat is saturated with useful components that improve vision, remove water and fats from the body. Older people will find in it a product that helps in the treatment of atherosclerosis and in the prevention of Alzheimer's. In addition, they will appreciate its nutritional value, minimal calorie content and easy digestibility.

Problems with hypoxia can also be solved with the help of octopus meat, because it is a kind of antioxidant, enriches the body with oxygen. The use of this seafood is not limited to the age of the consumer.

Harm and contraindications

Octopus meat is not ideal for general consumption. When a rash and pustules appear on the skin after meals, nausea, vomiting and other signs of intoxication begin, existing diseases worsen - it is most likely that a person has an individual intolerance to the product.

Like all existing seafood, octopuses should not be consumed after thawing: they quickly decompose protein, which leads to food poisoning. The octopus in its body is able to collect mercury and its compounds. Insufficient heat treatment leads to impaired vision, hearing, and the state of the nervous system.

Cholecystitis, peptic ulcers of the stomach, intestines, pancreas are exacerbated by the use of clam meat. Recklessness in the use of the product by pregnant women and nursing mothers can create problems with their health and the condition of the child.

So that the octopus does not become a source of health problems, you should be attentive to the selection and preparation of dishes from it.

How to choose and store an octopus

1. The first sign of freshness of a product is its smell. Fresh octopus should smell like sea fish.
2. When choosing, it is better to focus on its size: the meat of a large individual is usually hard and tasteless, while for small and medium, weighing less than 1 kg, it is soft and juicy.
3. When purchasing an octopus, you need to focus on freshness. The eyes of a cephalopod mollusk will tell about this: if it is transparent - it is worth buying, muddy - it is not worth the risk. True, it is not always possible to find eyes, because a large octopus is sold in parts.
4. The body must be elastic. This is easy to verify: after pressing, the fossa disappears.
5. Skin peeling from octopus meat speaks of its “not the first freshness”.
6. A light brown color is a sign of a successful acquisition. The inside of the tentacles should be lighter than the outside.
7. The tentacles of the cephalopod should be clean, without spots.
8. It is better to purchase the whole carcass, and not just the tentacles. This is a guarantee of the freshness of the product.
9. On the packaging with canned octopus, the date, shelf life and a list of only the necessary ingredients should be clearly visible.

Fresh octopus, even frozen, should be stored for no more than three days in a vacuum package. Further storage can lead to health problems. Raw mollusk must be boiled, cooled, and only then stored in a vacuum package in the freezer.

How to clean an octopus

1. Running water will quickly help clear the octopus of sand and dirt. The carcass begins to process from the head.
2. Tentacles are separated from it with a knife. Then proceed to the removal of the eyes. Clean out the inside of the head cavity. The existing rudimentary similarity of the beak is squeezed out and thrown away. All thoroughly washed.
3. The skin of an octopus is usually removed after heat treatment. 5-10 minutes of boiling is enough to easily remove the skin from the cooled carcass.

A carcass left in the freezer for 1-3 days becomes softer due to the water remaining in the meat: it turns into ice and breaks nerves and muscle fibers.

A properly cleaned carcass of an octopus is a guarantee of food safety.

How to cook an octopus: recipes

Already in ancient times, people knew about the taste advantages of this mollusk. For example, it is known that in ancient Greece the octopus's head and tentacles stuffed with spices were considered an exquisite dish.The food was baked; it tasted like a pie.

Not only cooks, but also ordinary housewives know countless ways to cook octopus. This seafood creates an excellent combination with onions, garlic, tomatoes, lemon, olive oil, rice, wine, soy sauce. Gourmets and lovers of the product can no longer surprise not only appetizers and salads with octopus, but also the main dishes of this seafood.

Cooking, frying, stewing, marinating, stuffing, baking - all this variety of actions with octopus meat is available to any cook. They also make minced meat and cutlets.

Different nations have their own preferences. So, the Japanese adore octopus with rice. For the Chinese, sauces come first. Koreans can serve live octopus as a dish. Polynesians adore dried octopuses boiled in coconut milk or baked in an earthen oven. In Europe, this product is more familiar in batter and in soup.

Small octopuses are good if they are grilled. In their absence, you can do with large carcasses, previously cut into pieces.

Note! Chipped or slightly frozen before cooking, the mollusk meat acquires special softness.

Octopus in soy sauce

A dish with an octopus in “union” with soy sauce, olive oil or wine vinegar will acquire a special and unique taste. Consider a simple recipe.

How to cook:

1. Chopped slices (500 g of meat) in flour.
2. Put the pieces on a hot pan with a minimum amount of oil. Fry for no more than 3 minutes.
3. Take 2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chop. Then 4 tbsp. cream, 80 g of butter, 0.5 cups of water, salt, curry pepper (to taste) add to the meat.
4. Simmer for 5 minutes under a closed lid over low heat.

Serve rice as a side dish, season with soy sauce.

Grilled octopus

Put the oiled octopus in the preheated grill for about 10 minutes. The signal of readiness is the appearance of a blush on the meat. After frying, serve on both sides with grated garlic sauce with olive oil and squeezed lemon juice.

Grilled octopus

Pre-boiled octopus, preferably small, cut into cubes and fry in boiling oil over high heat. Drain the released water. The next step is to add to the meat a mixture of olive oil, several cloves of garlic. Pour a little lemon juice to taste. After about a quarter of an hour add pepper and any greens. Serve hot.

Braised Octopus

In this dish, not only the octopus itself is present, but also boiled beans in the volume of one glass. Boil 2 kg of clam meat in water with one head of onion and 1 tbsp. vegetable oil no more than 6-7 minutes. Separately, prepare a vegetable base from 1 onion, sliced ​​in circles, 3 pieces of carrots, half a head of garlic. Fry in oil or lard to a blush. Add half a glass of dry white wine, 6 tbsp. olive oil, bring the mixture to a boil. Lay beans with chopped octopus meat, salt, pepper. Keep 15 minutes on fire, add greens before serving. The dish is ready.

Octopus salad

The following components are brought into its composition: half a kilo of seafood, 4 boiled potatoes in their skins, 1 red onion, a dozen cherry tomatoes, seedless olives (about 60 g), olive oil (about 5 tablespoons), 1 tablespoon each lemon juice and balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp liquid honey, lettuce.

Cut the boiled octopus into small pieces, and the potatoes into cubes, to which you add the cherry divided in half, onion cut in half rings, lettuce leaves torn into pieces. Before mixing the ingredients, prepare a sauce consisting of vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice and honey. The salad is ready, it remains to add salt and sauce.

Weight Loss Salad

Approximately 300 g of octopus cut into small pieces are added to the stewpan, where 3 cloves of garlic were fried for 2 minutes. After 5 minutes of stewing, send the sliced ​​cherry tomatoes - about 200 g, 1 avocado and the same amount of bell pepper, sliced ​​red onion in half rings to the meat.The final action is to season an almost ready dish with a sauce in which chili and lemon juice are mixed in equal proportions.

Octopus soup

For gourmets and lovers of seafood dishes, Tunisian soup is familiar. To preserve the juiciness and tenderness of the meat, it is important to prevent its digestion.

Fry in oil for a quarter of an hour cubes of 1 onion, 3 crushed cloves of garlic, finely chopped carrots and a bunch of celery. Pour half a glass of tomato paste into the oil and simmer for about 10 minutes. At the end of the period add chopped octopus meat (in the amount of 1 kg) with water. It should be about two fingers above the level of pledged products. After boiling, reduce the fire, add spices. 20 minutes before the end of cooking, add cilantro and wheat groats to the soup. Proceed to serving soup after octopus meat is ready. To do this, he needs about an hour and a half.

Octopus appetizer

After 35 minutes of boiling the clam meat, leave it in a saucepan covered with a towel for about 20 minutes. Finished and cooled meat cut into small cubes and put in warmed olive oil. Combine sliced ​​2-3 cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp. tomato paste, a couple of sprigs of rosemary, salt and red pepper to taste. Stir, cook until the water evaporates completely. The original appetizer, popular with Italians, is ready.

Octopus sandwich

This snack is especially popular in Greece. Best for a sandwich, tentacles boiled for 20 minutes are suitable. Sliced ​​chopped octopus in a saucepan with 300 ml of water. After 20 minutes of boiling pour 1 cup of white wine. Wait for the alcohol to evaporate a little, and gradually put 250 g of olives, chopped into rings, chopped 2 cloves of garlic, 1 cup olive oil, 1 tbsp. capers, and fresh cherry tomatoes - 400 g. If canned tomatoes are used, it is better to add them at the end of a 30-minute cooking. Finely chopped parsley and ground paprika add flavor and aroma. No salt needed. Put the mixture on slices of loaf coated with olive oil and grilled.

Octopus meat is now becoming a popular product in the preparation of various dishes, even in landlocked countries.

How to eat an octopus

The cephalopod for many peoples has long ceased to be a delicacy. In Japan, sushi and takoyaki with an octopus are the most common dish. Adore it and the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands. Countless recipes with stewed, boiled, fried, salted, dried and even fresh octopus meat are collected in Mediterranean cuisine.

Is it possible to eat alive

In Korea, a dish of small raw, almost live octopuses is popular. They are killed immediately before serving. Nerves, as you know, die for a long time, so the movement of the tentacles does not stop for some time. Thrill lovers can try the dish. But do not forget that the tentacles can stick to the esophagus. This is a mortal danger. According to statistics, the annual mortality from the love of such a dish is 6 people.

Is it possible to eat ink

On the belly of the octopus is a muscular bag, or more simply, an ink bag. The cephalopod uses it to scare off enemies or paralyze the smell of predatory fish. He pushes out a mixture of ink, mucus and water.

Ink octopus does not pose any danger to humans. Many peoples of the Mediterranean use them to decorate dishes. But they are not suitable as food.

Is it possible to eat an octopus head

Can. It is more tender than the tentacles, so it will take less time to cook. Fans of exotic dishes adopted from the ancient Greeks a method of cooking an octopus head with spices.It is stuffed with finely chopped herbs with various additives and baked in the oven.

Can Muslims Eat Octopus

The Qur'an spells out everything that is permitted and forbidden to a Muslim. Octopus refers to marine animals, the use of which is allowed. After all, the main book of Islam states: everything that is in sea water, caught, living or dead, is not forbidden to Muslims.

This exotic creature is known as an interesting inhabitant of the deep sea. The octopus is no less famous as a constituent element in the recipes of many peoples where seafood is used.

Interesting facts about octopuses

1. This cephalopod solitary mollusk due to its body shape is recognized as the most amazing creation of nature.
2. His skull has a donut-shaped brain, but no bones are completely missing.
3. The eyes of an octopus are in the shape of a rectangle.
4. Although nature endowed him with several means of transportation, the octopus mainly walks or crawls. He swims less often.
5. All existing species of octopus eject ink for protection. They can harm other inhabitants of the sea, but people will not suffer from them. The ejected ink cloud not only hides the octopus, but also neutralizes odors. There is a single specimen of such a mollusk, a blue-ringed octopus, the ink release of which can kill a person.
6. This mollusk specimen is mainly hunted at night. His prey is fish, crustaceans and small mollusks, which he gets from shells. If it fails, he uses a toxin that dissolves the sink.
7. Captivity for an octopus most often ends in death.
8. As studies have shown, these creatures possess memory, short-term and long-term.
9. In nature, a wide variety of octopuses of various sizes, but their behavior is the same.
10. Due to the lack of a skeleton, any cracks are accessible to this deep-sea mollusk. Its size can be four times the loophole where it can penetrate.
11. Octopuses are given superiority in intelligence among all invertebrates. They can be trained. They remember their “educators,” capable of distinguishing between figures and loosening cans. The octopus Paul, who predicted all the results of matches of the German football team, proved the intelligence of cephalopods.
12. Before eating, the octopus tastes with the help of taste buds, as if by sensors. He has more than 10,000 of them.
13. Scientists know more than 300 species of octopus. But they are convinced that not all species are known to science.
14. Blood moves through the body of the mollusk due to the presence of three hearts. Two hearts direct blood to the gills, one - blood circulates through the body. There is a lot of copper in the blood of this creature, therefore it is "aristocratic", that is, blue.
15. In addition to the fact that the color of the octopus can vary depending on the mood and location as a means of protection, they are able to scare away predators by mimicking their behavior.
16. When the tentacles come off, after a while they grow back at the place of loss. An octopus in moments of danger, like a lizard throwing its own tail, can itself break the tentacles.
17. This mollusk lacks hearing, and not one species has sound communication.
18. The life span of different types of octopus is from six months to five years. Mating for males is often the leading cause of death. Moreover, females can eat them. Females die after offspring appear. It itself must fight for survival. But even among the "indifferent" to the future of their "children" of octopuses there are exceptions. So the Pacific striped mollusk does not leave the female for a long time; for several months it has “mercy” with it. And mother has been taking care of babies for several months.
19. These mollusks mate only once in a lifetime.
20. The female leaves about 200,000 eggs, but the survival rate of the newly born young is no more than 30%.
21. The largest specimen of octopus is famous for the Pacific Ocean.There you can find specimens weighing up to 45 kg. The smallest cephalopod California mollusk is 2.5 cm in size.
22. Octopuses are clean inhabitants of the deep sea. Instead of a broom, they “sweep” litter with water, released by a stream from a funnel on the body. The remaining food is always in one special place.

Octopuses are unusual sea creatures, which are also called cephalopods: their arms, or legs, or rather, tentacles grow out of their heads. Whatever they are called, humanity does not like only their unusual appearance. People like octopuses as a product saturated with many elements necessary for the body.

Octopus photo