In Japan, research is being conducted to grow sea urchins with vegetables that can be thrown away. By giving vegetables, the number of eating parts has increased and the taste has improved.
@@tengkualiff don't get to excited about it if China manages to ruin Taiwan beginning stages into democratic Republic they will be just as bad as China
They’re also processed in Sacramento. I tell people they’re eating gonads, but few believe me. My husband was a professional urchin and abalone diver, then he managed a processing plant. On our first date, he explained he was inventing an urchin processing machine based on bilateral biological symmetry. I asked if he could spell that, and he could. We had a spectacular marriage until his peaceful passing. I gave his ashes to the jellyfish off Moss Landing in the Monterey, while a pair of whales breached off the port bow.
That was my favorite thing to do when people tried it for the first time when I worked at a sushi restaurant. Right when they take the first bite, I would ask them if they knew what it was. Priceless.
The purple sea urchin does not taste as good as the red one but ultimately they're still edible and are devastating the kelp forests. A few RUclipsrs who forage sustainably like Outdoor Chef Life advocate harvesting them instead of the red ones
Bolth are starting to decline do to lack of food to eat. Also the fact there not getting the purple ones and selling them confuses me. I love the blue ones looks very cool
@Blahblah but the purple ones are eating the food till its all gone. Its almost like that raindeer island that had only raindeer on it tell it didn't because they eat all the food and starved to death. Kelp in those places were thick and kelp can grow 2 to 4 feet a day did you not see how shorte it was. Did you miss the huge living purple mat even if it takes more effort theres more of them then the red by lots.
@@TrHippyful nah, but you do not want to turn it into small bits so you get less each bite. But being premium means presentation is a big part of price.
Ah, only had a sea urchin once on a beach in Sicily, fresh from the sea, from a man who was very generous giving us one of the ones he had just caught. A very memorable experience.
I know right. You really hit the nail in the head with this comment. I'm also wondering why won't just they harvest the purple urchins while waiting for the red urchin and kelp recover. I know it's not as profitable and as high quality than red urchin, but at least it they are currently on surplus and they can sell a lot of them on lower cost. Thus, making it affordable and will surely introduce this to a new market, the general populace. It's a generally win-win situation to the public, nature and the Uni fishermen.
@@hullbreachdetected4846they can still try to market them for the general populace. I'm sure there are lot of common folks and budget sushi restaurant owners willing to purchase affordable options. They can also catch them to be used in other industries, like to be used as natural fertilizer or to make animal feed. As they stated, the purple ones are the one who keeps the kelp from recovering. They need to control their population to aid the red uni. That's just my opinion.
@@raymondmagat4025 That would be ideal, but these people are going for the option that brings the greatest profit for their efforts. They aren't that much interested in the survival of Urchin species or any species for that matter. They know how to scuba dive and that's it, they aren't educated people nor any intellectual ones to begin with. They just go for the money and consider it a job to survive in society, like most people.
@@raymondmagat4025 you're missing the point: the purple dont have the pieces that people want even in them. they are useless. being California, there is not going to be any culling because it is California....
Here in the Philippines, Sea Urchins can be found anywhere within the rocky areas of the sea. But the difference is that they are not as huge and healthy like those in Santa Barbara. They are sold per bottle and it's really cheap. Fishermen sell them $2.17 per bottle. It's so cool that seeing these kind of unis in different parts of the world and looking totally different from what we usually have here in our country. I love sea urchins and it will forever be my favorite sea food!
@DonnellOkafor-pd7yn I think I’ve had crappy urchins so far, but in my experience, they just taste like… the smell of the ocean somehow made into a flavor you can taste. (I don’t like the smell of the ocean that much)
For those who think the solution is to grow more kelp, well, kelp needs cold water which rich in oxygen to thrive. With the rising sea water temperature, it's not that easy to grow kelp.
These harvesters are simply profiteering, they care less about restoring the ecosystem. The kelp don't stand a chance regardless of sea temperature. With all the melting ice caps, sea temperature has been great for kelp so that's BS pal
@@SeaCaptBritRob "With all the melting ice caps, sea temperature has been great for kelp so that's BS pal" - WHAT? Dude, that's NOT how it works - the reason the ice caps are melting is due to INCREASED temperature, it's not like that cold water makes its way down to California, do you not understand how MASSIVELY huge the Earth and it's oceans are? HAHAHA, melting ice caps lower ocean temps thousands of miles away, HAHAHA. I love the arrogance of normal people thinking they know better than scientists who literally study a topic for decades. Wow.
we need to market purple urchins, i’ve had some myself and although they are smaller they are just as sweet! california has thousands of those purple urchins - we need to find some way to sell them
Sadly it's the other species, the ones that aren't marketable that are proliferating and decimating the kelp. However these species could make an excellent biodynamic organic fertilizer or even chicken/ fish feed supplement. Hopefully some entrepreneur will start harvesting these other species and allow the kelp to recover!
Sea urchins grew out of control and destroyed a lot of kelp forests in the early 20th century after people overhunted sea otters for their fur. After they stopped hunting and reintroduced sea otters, they're eating the urchins and slowly getting their numbers under control, helping kelp forests grow back.
That’s only up by Washington state. Down in California the main predators are predatory starfish. A virus came through and absolutely destroyed their population, we should be focusing on restoring the starfish populations
but we are eating the red ones not the purple ones. wouldnt it be better to do a cull on the purple and not harvest the red ones for a while so their numbers grow a bit again and help kelp grow
I KNOW RIGHT?! I was going to use this for life science.....but then realized having someone say gonads that many times in a 4th grade class.......yeah.....
@@ER-uy7ct remember never use the abbreviation for the British Broadcasting Company with them either. Many teachers learned that. BBC should not be said.
Here in the Philippines, sea urchins (particularly the Collector urchin), is a delicacy. We usually buy and eat it raw, fresh from fishermen themselves when we go out island hopping. That's the only way we can eat them- going to the sea. They don't get processed or delivered to markets. As far as I can remember, each urchin costs about 50 pesos or 1 US dollar. Interesting how different countries eat urchin!
>They don't get processed or delivered to markets uhh, they do, and they're expensive. EDIT: To all the youtube intellectual lightweights commenting about how wrong I am, I am from the Philippines too, and again, we do process sea urchin the same way as shown in the video, down to the styrofoam packaging, though not in the same scale of tons of urchin per day. Why would I talk about other parts of the world when the original comment talks about the Philippines lmao. Also, just to be clear, I'm not saying and have never said that people are not eating them fresh from the sea, it's just not possible for city folks like me, so we get them processed and packaged, I don't need to go island hopping just to satisfy my craving for uni. It's always nice to see r/confidentlyincorrect content out here in the wild. I've been called so many names that it's quite amusing since evidently many of you weren't taught about context clues in grade school. I wasn't expecting quality discourse since this is the youtube comments but I never expected this level of smugness from people who couldn't even read plain english properly lmao
We Filipinos eat them fresh from the sea. If the urchins were processed and delivered, it would be business so small it is barely observed, hence my comment. We don't have urchins in our fancy restaurants (except for a select few) and supermarkets here. :)
@@gaudenciomanaloto6443 , if you have observed urchins consumed the same way as shown in the video happening in the Philippines, please, correct me with some proof.
I was talking about urchin consumption in the Philippines, I did not use that statement to describe urchin consumption around other parts of the world nor as shown in the video.
This is partly impacted by sea otter populations. They dont discriminate urchins like we do, and that population control allows kelp to grow back while also increasing pressure on the 'less desirable' urchins, allowing more variety to compete and survive.
@@Broockle History has shown when you bring one predator to solve a problem it becomes another decades later. Possibly too much otters might impact the sea life and otters might overpopulate.
@@AllenHanPR It's kinda happening by itself anyway the way I see it and it's humans that are over selecting the red urchins so.... The Otters clearly know better than we do.
@@AllenHanPR otters are not a "new" predator in California kelp forests - they are native. The problems kelp forests have is because ppl hunted urchin eating otters for their fur in the first place.
I think it was only five years ago that Florida was having a different issue with sea urchins being wiped out by a disease. Kelp makes them taste good, but is not the only thing they eat. They also eat algae which can kill corals if it goes unchecked, so efforts were made in coral reefs to increase the urchins in general to help save the dying reefs. It looks like they were successful with the urchins except that they are wiping out kelp now. It's always something.
It's funny ANPC, because I think it was only five years ago that Australia was having a different issue with sea urchins being wiped out by a disease. Kelp makes them taste good, but is not the only thing they eat. They also eat algae which can kill corals if it goes unchecked, so efforts were made in coral reefs to increase the urchins in general to help save the dying reefs. It looks like they were successful with the urchins except that they are wiping out kelp now. It's always something.
Yes, the urchin Diadema antillarum died off from a disease, possibly exacerbated by anthropogenic factors like pollution. They eat algae, which competes with hard corals. If Diadema can come back then that would help corals compete for space better with algae.
To be fair, it's DELICIOUS creamy urchin nuts. One of my favourite foods. And it's not really rich people thing, people in phillippines collect and eat them as a family activity and they cost less than 1 usd apiece.
Over 30 years ago, not many people knew to eat sea urchins, so when I went to Half Moon Bay in San Francisco with my mom to get fresh fish, the fishermen weren't even selling the urchins they had accidentally picked up in their net. I told them I wanted them and they sold me an urchin for a dollar. I bought 3, took them home, and used a chisel and hammer to open them up. 😂 They were sooooo gooooood!
@@kctjohnson Very interesting how much Urchin has grown in the market. Especially red urchin. We need more purple urchin harvested, they’re consuming too much coral!
I HATE sea urchins when swimming!! When the tide pushes you into the the sea floor, and you see a spikey ball just waiting to prick you, that's when I lose it
As a kiwi, I can say wholeheartedly that I've never needed to buy kina (that's what we call them here, it's Maori) and that they aren't THAT expensive but they also aren't sold in your average supermarkets. You'd need to get them from a fish market or from somewhere off a wharf that sells fresh fish and other seafood (Kai Moana) as the boats come in. Pretty cool other places enjoy kina as much as we do :)
They’re pretty cheap in Australia because we’re trying to cull them as they’re invading reefs! a lot of restaurants in Melbourne are trying to incorporate them into menus to support the cull
It might be a good idea to harvest the purple sea urchins too. Yes there's less gonads, but they are harming the environment and hurting the sea urchin business, it would just make sense to catch them and eat them anyway for sustainability
She left out info. There are a set number of urchin licenses in Calf. The price between A+ and B grade is 2-3X . Your boat costs stays the same regardless.
Are people willing to pay more for them than the cost to collect and process them? If they aren't, nobody is going to collect and process them. And keep in mind that processing purple urchins for sale will be more expensive than red urchins as they will need to process more urchins to get a given weight of the end product. And that same weight of end product will be worth less than from red urchins.
In my country, PH, sea urchins are priced cheap, since we're surrounded by a sea and an ocean. Ofcourse, the price gets more and more expensive the farther you are from the body of water. It costs around 1 PHP - 5 PHP (around 0.05 USD) when I first tried it years ago, but now it should be around 10-50 PHP(around (0.20 -1 USD). You can also get a lot for free if you accompany your fisherman friend since there's literally a lot of them in the sea. Sadly, restaurants in cities tend to overprice them.
Yeah when my family go to a vacation in this island called kirikiti island (also known shark island since it's there has a lot of sharks in it we're just lucky/unlucky cuz they're not there since the sharks there are not aggressive and most divers would just swim besides them also the corals there are either creepy or beautiful since I saw one coral and it looks like it's staring through my soul😅) the island has a lot of corals and a lot of sea urchin me, my brother and the fisherman dived in to get some we caught a lot we made sure we caught a lot since sea urchin destroys corals
They sell it cheap in Camiguin and in some parts of Cebu or Bohol. If you want sea urchin "on-the-go" there are bottles sold in the nearest supermarket.. 🙂
Other people have also said it, but they really should try harvesting the purple urchins and marketing them as a more budget friendly alternative. Helps to make their business more sustainable by taking less stress off the kelp forests, and opens the market up to more people. I love sushi but have never tried uni before because of the price. Would be willing to try it out, even the "inferior" variety, if it was more affordable or available.
i think the issue may also be the amount of food in each purple urchin, like they would need to collect and clean so many for a smaller amount of inferior product (otherwise they better start harvesting me some purple urchins!)
Unfortunately, there is just so much effort involved in cleaning out a purple urchin for so little uni, that it negates any cost differential you might get from them being easier to find. It's the same problem that's going on with invasive green crabs in the United States - it would be wonderful to create a market for them, but they're too small to be marketable. I'm a marine conservationist and these are some of the great difficult-to-solve problems of our time.
People don't get paid to clean up the purple urchins and ud be killing them purely for population control but people would say that's not ethically right either.
@@Ranger-sl3qq actually purple sea urchins and Red Sea urchins are native along all the shores of the Pacific Northwest from California to Northern BC and Alaska
Mate im from new zealand aswell and ive never heard the idea of using a kina for bait i tend to use mostly rainbow trout. Since id rather eat the kina. Mainly go diving out east coast around whakatane and sometimes to waihau bay
During the 2014-16 El Nino, a heatwave on the west coast killed 95% of kelp, which were replaced by urchin barrens. Bull kelp has only started to recover in 2021.
You also need to mention the lack of sea otters, as a keystone species, without them the urchin population skyrockets, kills all the kelp, and screws over the ecosystem. The sea otters are killed by Killer Whales, who like their name, normally eat whales. As a result of human influence, killer whales haven't been able to find enough whales to eat, eating sea otters now. We have triggered a trophic cascade that screws over the whole ecosystem, and in the end the very urchin divers. we need to not only harvest quality urchins, but also those that damage the ecosystem. We cant remove the whales, so the only way to fix this damage is to remove more of them from the water.
"Killer Whales" imply that they are whales that kill. The name does not imply they kill whales, else they would've been called "Whale Killers". It's like saying Monkey-eating Eagles are monkeys that eat eagles.
Thank you for making this documentary. I wanted to learn more about sea urchins, and thanks to you, I actually did learn about them in an entertaining way.
I distinctly remember during the holidays as a kid my dad would eat these sea urchin raw after diving for them at various beaches around Victoria, Australia.. completely oblivious to how expensive they are 🤣 I just thought they were cool ass little critters 😊
Robinson Crusoe? Like all foods, people once starved. They learned to try everything over thousands of years. I do also wonder if kings made their slaves and servants test eating things too.
I ate this like 20 years ago-in algeria. Local people used to collect them and sell them to beach goers. I have no clue if i ate it cooked or raw but all i can remember is that it was really tasty.
I went to a resort on a small island in the Pacific and there were so many of these but I didn't know at the time they were edible. I found out after when the show Lost showed the Japanese guy eating one. I still haven't tried it and it's been 25yrs.
@@jungschiffer8423 nope, fresh sea urchin taste like sea water and leaving creamy taste almost like seaweed after. its don't taste like salty caramel at all
@@jungschiffer8423 No way. It's more like the foie gras of the sea, with a sea smelling creamy unique pungent flavor. There's sweet or bitter ones. Japan even has sea urchin spaghetti in saizeriya, which is super tasty.
In the 70s, I would dive for urchins with a crew off of the Channel Islands mainly, San Nicholas. We used hooka rigs connected to a manifold that was connected to our volume tanks for air. Our boat was spontaneous combustion for starting the engine and we had two large volume tanks. We had three divers and one tender on the surface. Our nets were on bicycle rims and we kept the tender busy. We sold to Maruhide at $0.17 to $0.20 a pound wet. The boat got paid first...fuel,food,etc. Good times! Joe Biff burgers were the best at Fish Harbor.
My pre guess is the cost is a combination of timely shipping as it’s a seafood product that can rot very quickly unless under very specific conditions, the demand of certain places just isn’t high enough to have a healthy consistent market that can gradually lower its price, and probably because there’s some fenagling the same way diamonds are marked up by being “rare” or very uncommon in the market itself
we eat them fresh/with vinegar or it’s added as the main ingredient in a soup and it’s not that expensive here in the Philippines. When you go to the sea with rocks you can spot a sea urchin already and there are many of them in my place.
HAHAHAHA natatawa ako kase pinupulot lang namin yan sa ilalim ng dagat tas nilalagyan ng suka tapos mababalitaan kulang na tig 100$ pala yan sa ibang bansa😭✊
Sea Urchin are fkn tasty and eating it actually helps the oceans as they're considered pests. I wish people would eat urchin instead of a tasteless destructive shark fin.
I just tasted this for the first time last week when I came to japan, and trust me when I say I didn't expect its taste. At first I was hesitant to try it bc I thought it would be bitter from all the videos I've seen of people opening it, but it was actually kinda sweet? I don't know how to explain it but I really liked it's taste.
This series is interesting, but usually, when a product/service is so expensive, the product/service is low, and demand is high. Or the way that the product or service is made s complicated, that can also increase the price; basic economics ☺️
@@isDatBoi if you watched the video properly they mentioned how kelp forests have largely diminished due to how fast these guys reproduce and consume at the same time. kelp is basically like trees in the way it absorbs heat but for the ocean. which is the reason the ocean's waters are rising in temperature. they're important to the ecosystem, sure. but not if the area has none of their predators helping with population control. overfishing has led to this and it's our job now to be their predators to say the least.
@@tendrylknyte8391 what you are suggesting is not a solution. We are beyond the point of leaving a single species and expecting nature to find balance because so many other aspects of nature have been disrupted by global warming. The urchins are now in far greater number than they naturally would have been if we as human were aware of our impact 100 years ago. The sea urchins natural predator otters were hunted to near extinction. By fishing now we are in fact fulfilling its role to keep sea urchin populations under a modicum of control.
In Sardinia (an island west of Rome) urchin fishing has been outlawed because of the high demand, but, during the winter you can get as many as you’d like. It’s my childhood! I would fish some with my father, pick them up with out hands or our a pair of marine scissors. Then, we cut them down the side and have some bread and white wine along side it! Sea urchins are by far one of my favorite foods :)
Amazing how the value of sea urchins vary in each country. In the Philippines, it is well-known as Tuyom. Tuyom are being garnered by fishermen or any local people living near the sea without safety harness and just pure power of breathing. I know because I have witnessed it firsthand. It is also very cheap for I ate three tuyoms for just a dollar. It tastes better when partnered with the sellers' special sauce. Although we do not eat these at fancy restaurants, and can only be done when we do island hopping.
Tuyom (long-spined sea urchins) are inferior for eating due to their small size and are usually just ignored. What we do harvest all the time are called "Swaki", which are larger with shorter spines and are also sweeter-tasting.
In Chile we call them erizos de mar (sea porccupine) and they sell them in brine in plastic containers or jars at the local fish markets, they are still expensive but not as expensive as the ones in the video
I’d honestly suggest harvesting the purple sea urchin if they’re such an issue. You may not have as much marketability but in the long run you’d be giving the red urchins a better chance at reproducing and having food to feed on with the purples gone. There’s also shouldn’t be an issue with culling the purple heard since they are an invasive species, normally the government/ main conservation group will give the go ahead for their eradication.
I was thinking the same thing. What they're doing now, they're only hurting themselves in the long run and giving purple urchins more of a chance to thrive and take over. I feel like if they don't change things up, there won't really be a market for red urchins cause they'll be just as useless due to the purple urchins taking over.
No company would want to do that unless it's either in high demand or they get something in return. There are a lot of red urchins and so they'd need more divers for that. With the added divers, they'd also need to pay them more than usual since the divers would need to stay there longer to get both red and normal (marketable) urchins. Having more urchins would also lead to its value eventually going down. As long as there's no real impact on the companies' sales revenue, they won't care that much about environmental problems.
wow I never thought that sea urchins cost that much! i live in a coastal part of Cebu in Philippines were sea urchins (colorful one) are basically everywhere when it's low tide. when it happens, the people here will bring their own bucket to place the urchins they had picked. It's like a leisure activity and family get together here. some of them are families and they'll bring corn rice and coke w them to eat freshly picked urchins together. but if you don't feel to go there you can buy a bucket of urchins for $0.50 only
Sadly there are not that many predators remaining to take control over the population of "bad" urshins in the ocean. At least thats the case in here in Chile 🇨🇱. But one thing is true, urshin is a delicacy.
This is kind of funny because my town has been giving them away for free for years. They are invasive and people won't buy them so they just give them away for free
Always cracks me up how prized these are. Born in SB and having a Father that worked off-shore so every weekend visiting him, (parents divorced), we spent our weekends at the harbor as all of his buddy's were fishermen or Urchin divers and would see constant boxes of Urchin being offloaded at Santa Barbara Harbor. And this was way before Sushi was remotely popular. (I'm old) And as a kid, always wondered why so many were being harvested.
It was in Puerto Galera when I had my first sea urchin, fresh from a fisherman who had it in a basket and sold it for 50 pesos ($1) a piece. He had a bottle of vinegar with him, too. I can't remember the taste anymore since it's been years, but I remember how intimidated I was at it at first and how pleasantly surprised I was with its taste. Hope to have it again soon.
We use them for bait to catch fish, a very tasty sea creature that has fins and scales but more importantly, lots of meat. Those people should try fishing some time.
I was going to try to be a worker on one of these boats until I found out one of the benefits wasn't an _'all you can eat buffet'._ I guess I can't blame them though. I could eat uni all day long. _I'm talking about _*_ALL DAY LONG!_*
Very interesting! We have sea urchins (or Kina) in abundance in New Zealand. My father used to gather them all the time and we used to sit on the beach and eat them fresh from the shell.
Twenty-seven years ago I was at a well-known sushi bar in San Francisco and I tried fresh raw sea urchin for the first time. It was so awful I had a violent gag reaction and it was all I could do to not throw up and seriously offend the sushi chef. I surreptitiously spit it out into my napkin and quickly slipped away to the restroom where I threw the napkin in the trash there... I LOVE sushi, but the texture (mushy) and taste (I can't even describe; it was like the grossest fish taste) of the urchin was god-awful, and it's like my body just went, "Nope, ur not puttin' that sh*t in me..." So, I'm not understanding this mania for it, obviously... 😝😅🤢
Watching Spiky Gold Hunters on RUclips. New Zealand free diving for huge Sea Urchins. I was amazed at how they did it for 8 hours and free diving in really rough waters!
in Philippines, Sea Urchin (or Tuyom) is relatively common and consider here as pests its a problem for beach goers and fishermen since it can get caught along with their nets
I’m from Bohol Philippines. Me and my family used to go in the beach in the afternoon bring rice and we get urchin by ourself and eat dinner. Otherwise you can buy this fresh from the fisherman. you can also buy this in the market which fishermen already put in the bottle.
Sounds like you guys need to target the purple urchins, in Australia the purple urchins have the higher quality gonads and we have a low number of Red urchins, so if that tells me anything it's that you're doing it wrong.
There are beautiful sea creatures.i got a a white one Urchin 🌸on my 🐬Reef Tank and does a wonderful job eating algae 24/7,cost me about £17 on online 😀
I always wonder how it taste...really would like to try it. In Malaysia even though I hv seen so many sea urchins under the sea in Pangkor Island, but never find anywhere in my country these things in any fish markets...
In Japan, research is being conducted to grow sea urchins with vegetables that can be thrown away. By giving vegetables, the number of eating parts has increased and the taste has improved.
Wow thats pretty cool. Love your country btw!
Cool.
circular economy is so interesting
Guess the businesses will die then
@@tengkualiff don't get to excited about it if China manages to ruin Taiwan beginning stages into democratic Republic they will be just as bad as China
The first ever person to have tried these must’ve been REALLY brave. “Let’s break open this dark spiky ball and eat it’s insides without cooking it.”
😂👏👏👏😂
Fortune favors the bold in this case because it turns out the yellow parts of the spiky ball are goddamn delicious.
I'd say you have to be desperate and starving to eat it in order to find if it's edible, but hey it works out for the first person to try sea urchins
@@andrewsinclair7159 Does it compare to anything else?
@@drawgam2946 It tastes like the ocean, but in a good way.
"In some cases, an urchin can be totally empty inside"
Relatable
🤣🤣
They’re also processed in Sacramento. I tell people they’re eating gonads, but few believe me. My husband was a professional urchin and abalone diver, then he managed a processing plant. On our first date, he explained he was inventing an urchin processing machine based on bilateral biological symmetry. I asked if he could spell that, and he could. We had a spectacular marriage until his peaceful passing. I gave his ashes to the jellyfish off Moss Landing in the Monterey, while a pair of whales breached off the port bow.
I am so, so sorry for your loss. What a wonderful scenery you describe, scattering his ashes. May he rest in peace
May he rest in peace. Thank you for this information, it's extremely interesting to me as a person from Sacramento.
That was my favorite thing to do when people tried it for the first time when I worked at a sushi restaurant. Right when they take the first bite, I would ask them if they knew what it was. Priceless.
😭😭 I ate a few sometime ago in Japan, and just found out in this video that they were gonads
If you're back on the market I too can Spell biological bilateral symmetry
The purple sea urchin does not taste as good as the red one but ultimately they're still edible and are devastating the kelp forests. A few RUclipsrs who forage sustainably like Outdoor Chef Life advocate harvesting them instead of the red ones
Economics should take care of that once the red ones are sufficiently difficult to find
I love outdoor chef!
Or just smash purple urchins open every time you're diving as long as they're within hand's reach
Bolth are starting to decline do to lack of food to eat.
Also the fact there not getting the purple ones and selling them confuses me.
I love the blue ones looks very cool
@Blahblah but the purple ones are eating the food till its all gone.
Its almost like that raindeer island that had only raindeer on it tell it didn't because they eat all the food and starved to death.
Kelp in those places were thick and kelp can grow 2 to 4 feet a day did you not see how shorte it was.
Did you miss the huge living purple mat even if it takes more effort theres more of them then the red by lots.
As someone who dives for their own urchin, I deeply know the high price is due to the tedious cleaning to get the gonads out in good condition.
Does it affect taste?
@@TrHippyful nah, but you do not want to turn it into small bits so you get less each bite. But being premium means presentation is a big part of price.
Ah, only had a sea urchin once on a beach in Sicily, fresh from the sea, from a man who was very generous giving us one of the ones he had just caught. A very memorable experience.
Disgusting
I thought this was some weird innuendo
Ignoring the purple urchins while eliminating their competitors. Yeah, good sustainable business plan right there…
I know right. You really hit the nail in the head with this comment. I'm also wondering why won't just they harvest the purple urchins while waiting for the red urchin and kelp recover. I know it's not as profitable and as high quality than red urchin, but at least it they are currently on surplus and they can sell a lot of them on lower cost. Thus, making it affordable and will surely introduce this to a new market, the general populace. It's a generally win-win situation to the public, nature and the Uni fishermen.
@@raymondmagat4025 Probably because there's no demand for purple ones.
@@hullbreachdetected4846they can still try to market them for the general populace. I'm sure there are lot of common folks and budget sushi restaurant owners willing to purchase affordable options. They can also catch them to be used in other industries, like to be used as natural fertilizer or to make animal feed. As they stated, the purple ones are the one who keeps the kelp from recovering. They need to control their population to aid the red uni. That's just my opinion.
@@raymondmagat4025 That would be ideal, but these people are going for the option that brings the greatest profit for their efforts. They aren't that much interested in the survival of Urchin species or any species for that matter. They know how to scuba dive and that's it, they aren't educated people nor any intellectual ones to begin with. They just go for the money and consider it a job to survive in society, like most people.
@@raymondmagat4025 you're missing the point: the purple dont have the pieces that people want even in them. they are useless. being California, there is not going to be any culling because it is California....
Here in the Philippines, Sea Urchins can be found anywhere within the rocky areas of the sea. But the difference is that they are not as huge and healthy like those in Santa Barbara. They are sold per bottle and it's really cheap. Fishermen sell them $2.17 per bottle.
It's so cool that seeing these kind of unis in different parts of the world and looking totally different from what we usually have here in our country. I love sea urchins and it will forever be my favorite sea food!
Ayy weh san??? I buy sea urchin pero from Japanese restaraunts mdalas
If its american, european or japanese of they will scam you and try to sell it like its gold
Dami neto samin😂😂 hnd ko pinapansin ngaun takam na takam na neto😅😅
Madaming ganyan, kaso yong masasarap na klase konte na lang sa province namin
@DonnellOkafor-pd7yn I think I’ve had crappy urchins so far, but in my experience, they just taste like… the smell of the ocean somehow made into a flavor you can taste.
(I don’t like the smell of the ocean that much)
23. They said "gonads" 23 times in this video, in case you were wondering.
That seems low tbh
You counted?
thank you for your service
The stuff Americans wouldnt eat.
Really? It seems much higher
For those who think the solution is to grow more kelp, well, kelp needs cold water which rich in oxygen to thrive. With the rising sea water temperature, it's not that easy to grow kelp.
بھت خوب
Fixing this aint gonna be easy...not sure we can even. Were in a mess.
is it me or is like every ocean fact I've been hearing for the past ten years super depressing.
These harvesters are simply profiteering, they care less about restoring the ecosystem. The kelp don't stand a chance regardless of sea temperature. With all the melting ice caps, sea temperature has been great for kelp so that's BS pal
@@SeaCaptBritRob "With all the melting ice caps, sea temperature has been great for kelp so that's BS pal" - WHAT? Dude, that's NOT how it works - the reason the ice caps are melting is due to INCREASED temperature, it's not like that cold water makes its way down to California, do you not understand how MASSIVELY huge the Earth and it's oceans are?
HAHAHA, melting ice caps lower ocean temps thousands of miles away, HAHAHA. I love the arrogance of normal people thinking they know better than scientists who literally study a topic for decades. Wow.
Its great to know that not all species are edible. Theres thousands of these in my local beach and im getting so tempted to eat one.
I know I almost go to the beach and crack one to taste it.
@@nmmk9134 Depending on where you live. On the California coast there are 2 species, both are edible. One is choice.
we need to market purple urchins, i’ve had some myself and although they are smaller they are just as sweet! california has thousands of those purple urchins - we need to find some way to sell them
I am not sure on this one. Most of Urchins are not edible and even toxic.
Yeah Americans can eat everything but plants.
@@hamsterfloat what are you talking about?
@@hamsterfloat while true, both of these varieties are edible.
Ship them to Asia.
As a CA, I totally support this. They are taking over and destroying kelp ecosystems here in the Monterey bay
That's why it is pretty appropriate for us to eat em, its good for the ecosystem
Sadly it's the other species, the ones that aren't marketable that are proliferating and decimating the kelp.
However these species could make an excellent biodynamic organic fertilizer or even chicken/ fish feed supplement.
Hopefully some entrepreneur will start harvesting these other species and allow the kelp to recover!
They’re like the homeless of the sea.
@@crujones4046 😂
@@crujones4046 lol
Sea urchins grew out of control and destroyed a lot of kelp forests in the early 20th century after people overhunted sea otters for their fur. After they stopped hunting and reintroduced sea otters, they're eating the urchins and slowly getting their numbers under control, helping kelp forests grow back.
no we humans want sea urchins.
Very very slowly
That’s only up by Washington state. Down in California the main predators are predatory starfish. A virus came through and absolutely destroyed their population, we should be focusing on restoring the starfish populations
but we are eating the red ones not the purple ones. wouldnt it be better to do a cull on the purple and not harvest the red ones for a while so their numbers grow a bit again and help kelp grow
Try mosquitoes and bats, that will do you a lot of good. 😃😃😃
Sea Urchin: Haha i have a hard and spikey shell nothing can hurt me :)
Human: Hmm this very dangerous spikey ball looks good ima eat it
This is easily the most I have heard the word "gonad" used in a single sitting.
I KNOW RIGHT?! I was going to use this for life science.....but then realized having someone say gonads that many times in a 4th grade class.......yeah.....
Hahahahahah
This is the best reply ever lol
@@ER-uy7ct remember never use the abbreviation for the British Broadcasting Company with them either. Many teachers learned that. BBC should not be said.
Lmfao
"the gonads are extremely fragile" --- got that right
lmao exactly my thought.
Om what a comparison. Lol
That’s what she said 😂
😆
"Water is wet"
Imagine aliens harvesting humans just to eat our gonads lol.
"Dont eat me, my yogurt taste gross; it taste salty, smelly and sticky 🤮🤮💀"
@@白キロ gonads bro not your yoghurt.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@morganzachlfich4309 loooool
:))
Sea urchins : "hello, im below the water, pls halp me."
Here in the Philippines, sea urchins (particularly the Collector urchin), is a delicacy. We usually buy and eat it raw, fresh from fishermen themselves when we go out island hopping. That's the only way we can eat them- going to the sea. They don't get processed or delivered to markets. As far as I can remember, each urchin costs about 50 pesos or 1 US dollar. Interesting how different countries eat urchin!
>They don't get processed or delivered to markets
uhh, they do, and they're expensive.
EDIT: To all the youtube intellectual lightweights commenting about how wrong I am, I am from the Philippines too, and again, we do process sea urchin the same way as shown in the video, down to the styrofoam packaging, though not in the same scale of tons of urchin per day. Why would I talk about other parts of the world when the original comment talks about the Philippines lmao.
Also, just to be clear, I'm not saying and have never said that people are not eating them fresh from the sea, it's just not possible for city folks like me, so we get them processed and packaged, I don't need to go island hopping just to satisfy my craving for uni.
It's always nice to see r/confidentlyincorrect content out here in the wild. I've been called so many names that it's quite amusing since evidently many of you weren't taught about context clues in grade school.
I wasn't expecting quality discourse since this is the youtube comments but I never expected this level of smugness from people who couldn't even read plain english properly lmao
We Filipinos eat them fresh from the sea. If the urchins were processed and delivered, it would be business so small it is barely observed, hence my comment. We don't have urchins in our fancy restaurants (except for a select few) and supermarkets here. :)
@@gaudenciomanaloto6443 , if you have observed urchins consumed the same way as shown in the video happening in the Philippines, please, correct me with some proof.
I was talking about urchin consumption in the Philippines, I did not use that statement to describe urchin consumption around other parts of the world nor as shown in the video.
Disaster.
This is partly impacted by sea otter populations. They dont discriminate urchins like we do, and that population control allows kelp to grow back while also increasing pressure on the 'less desirable' urchins, allowing more variety to compete and survive.
yes yes
RELEASE THE OTTERS!
@@Broockle History has shown when you bring one predator to solve a problem it becomes another decades later. Possibly too much otters might impact the sea life and otters might overpopulate.
@@AllenHanPR
It's kinda happening by itself anyway the way I see it and it's humans that are over selecting the red urchins so....
The Otters clearly know better than we do.
@@AllenHanPR otters are not a "new" predator in California kelp forests - they are native. The problems kelp forests have is because ppl hunted urchin eating otters for their fur in the first place.
💛👏I love you brought this up
I think it was only five years ago that Florida was having a different issue with sea urchins being wiped out by a disease. Kelp makes them taste good, but is not the only thing they eat. They also eat algae which can kill corals if it goes unchecked, so efforts were made in coral reefs to increase the urchins in general to help save the dying reefs. It looks like they were successful with the urchins except that they are wiping out kelp now. It's always something.
Interesting.
It's funny ANPC, because I think it was only five years ago that Australia was having a different issue with sea urchins being wiped out by a disease. Kelp makes them taste good, but is not the only thing they eat. They also eat algae which can kill corals if it goes unchecked, so efforts were made in coral reefs to increase the urchins in general to help save the dying reefs. It looks like they were successful with the urchins except that they are wiping out kelp now. It's always something.
Yes, the urchin Diadema antillarum died off from a disease, possibly exacerbated by anthropogenic factors like pollution. They eat algae, which competes with hard corals. If Diadema can come back then that would help corals compete for space better with algae.
Balance is needed in all things
Seems like we'd have to find a way to market purple urchins as a delicacy to reduce its population.
Normal people: I think I’ll have a sandwich today!
Rich people: _urchin nuts_
To be fair, it's DELICIOUS creamy urchin nuts. One of my favourite foods. And it's not really rich people thing, people in phillippines collect and eat them as a family activity and they cost less than 1 usd apiece.
@@applepie9806 *creamy nuts*
@@Cokknine333 📷🤨
normal people eat kina
it's not surprising, people eat male fish nuts too
Over 30 years ago, not many people knew to eat sea urchins, so when I went to Half Moon Bay in San Francisco with my mom to get fresh fish, the fishermen weren't even selling the urchins they had accidentally picked up in their net. I told them I wanted them and they sold me an urchin for a dollar. I bought 3, took them home, and used a chisel and hammer to open them up. 😂 They were sooooo gooooood!
Are they red or purple?
@@susanaa.6692 It was so long ago I can’t remember. I remember black liquid oozing out of the urchin when I cracked it open though 😂
@@kctjohnson Very interesting how much Urchin has grown in the market.
Especially red urchin. We need more purple urchin harvested, they’re consuming too much coral!
I grew up in HMB…it’s not in SF. It is it’s own city. 😅
@@mooncow-io I m’est to say Bay Area
I had no idea "gonad inspector" was a legit job title.
Yup. It's right there next to gonad polisher.
I have had that title for 20+ years in Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Springs and Orange County.
@@thepettiestpersonever6534 You'd think it would be a popular title for people in San Francisco. har har
Ok Sir! Turn your head & Cough!🤣🤣🤣
El cheapo 😂
Where can I buy cheap B grade gonads?
mens locker room
I HATE sea urchins when swimming!!
When the tide pushes you into the the sea floor, and you see a spikey ball just waiting to prick you, that's when I lose it
Lul where you live? 😊
just crack them open and eat them on the spot for spite
@@abbymerchant2069 lol
@@abbymerchant2069 bahah love this comment almost fell off the toilet.
when does the tide push you into the sea floor?
As a kiwi, I can say wholeheartedly that I've never needed to buy kina (that's what we call them here, it's Maori) and that they aren't THAT expensive but they also aren't sold in your average supermarkets. You'd need to get them from a fish market or from somewhere off a wharf that sells fresh fish and other seafood (Kai Moana) as the boats come in. Pretty cool other places enjoy kina as much as we do :)
Fellow kiwi here :D facts you can go diving for kina its common as
@@tomdonovansmith9806 You don’t even need to dive
They’re pretty cheap in Australia because we’re trying to cull them as they’re invading reefs! a lot of restaurants in Melbourne are trying to incorporate them into menus to support the cull
NZ gannggggg. I’ve seen soooo many Kina to the point where I don't even notice them anymore.
I see them in paknsave for 30bucks a punnet too
In France you buy the whole "oursin" and eat it on bread and butter.
Tried it only once but it was pretty good
If anyone is curious. It tastes like butter, its butter with a hint of ocean it's quite nice
Here in New Zealand it is yellow gold. Kina as we call them in Māori. Creamy and delicioso. Love to eat them by itself or with fry bread.
I remember taking a loaf of bread down to the rocks at Pakatoa island when I worked there to crack open Kina and eat with the bread.
@@lukecage275 good memories
Seki uce
I used to crack them while diving in NZ, and use them to hand-catch leatherjackets
What would you say they taste like?
It might be a good idea to harvest the purple sea urchins too. Yes there's less gonads, but they are harming the environment and hurting the sea urchin business, it would just make sense to catch them and eat them anyway for sustainability
She left out info. There are a set number of urchin licenses in Calf. The price between A+ and B grade is 2-3X . Your boat costs stays the same regardless.
Are people willing to pay more for them than the cost to collect and process them? If they aren't, nobody is going to collect and process them.
And keep in mind that processing purple urchins for sale will be more expensive than red urchins as they will need to process more urchins to get a given weight of the end product. And that same weight of end product will be worth less than from red urchins.
In my country, PH, sea urchins are priced cheap, since we're surrounded by a sea and an ocean. Ofcourse, the price gets more and more expensive the farther you are from the body of water. It costs around 1 PHP - 5 PHP (around 0.05 USD) when I first tried it years ago, but now it should be around 10-50 PHP(around (0.20 -1 USD). You can also get a lot for free if you accompany your fisherman friend since there's literally a lot of them in the sea. Sadly, restaurants in cities tend to overprice them.
Yeah when my family go to a vacation in this island called kirikiti island (also known shark island since it's there has a lot of sharks in it we're just lucky/unlucky cuz they're not there since the sharks there are not aggressive and most divers would just swim besides them also the corals there are either creepy or beautiful since I saw one coral and it looks like it's staring through my soul😅) the island has a lot of corals and a lot of sea urchin me, my brother and the fisherman dived in to get some we caught a lot we made sure we caught a lot since sea urchin destroys corals
Still haven't tasted a cheap sea urchin, I rarely go to the coast...
Kind of like how in Maine lobster is dirt cheap and then the further you go from Maine the more expensive they get.
They sell it cheap in Camiguin and in some parts of Cebu or Bohol. If you want sea urchin "on-the-go" there are bottles sold in the nearest supermarket.. 🙂
Totally agree.
people paying a full check to eat a sea urchin, sea otters munching on them every day for free🤣🤣🤣
Reminds me of crawfish. They're invasive and pervasive and yet overpriced.
Wow, really? I normally don't think of crawfish as overpriced in the regions that can get them, right?
@@hypetrained Getting them fresh can be overpriced, theyre cheaper frozen but what's the point?
@@hypetrained seafood is all about how fresh it is.
In Louisiana it’s cheap fresh
De hek? Craw Fish look exactly like Lobsters.
Is this like a Raven Crow thing?
Other people have also said it, but they really should try harvesting the purple urchins and marketing them as a more budget friendly alternative. Helps to make their business more sustainable by taking less stress off the kelp forests, and opens the market up to more people. I love sushi but have never tried uni before because of the price. Would be willing to try it out, even the "inferior" variety, if it was more affordable or available.
i think the issue may also be the amount of food in each purple urchin, like they would need to collect and clean so many for a smaller amount of inferior product (otherwise they better start harvesting me some purple urchins!)
Unfortunately, there is just so much effort involved in cleaning out a purple urchin for so little uni, that it negates any cost differential you might get from them being easier to find. It's the same problem that's going on with invasive green crabs in the United States - it would be wonderful to create a market for them, but they're too small to be marketable. I'm a marine conservationist and these are some of the great difficult-to-solve problems of our time.
They're still the same work harvesting and cleaning, for less profit. Capitalism doesn't care about nature. The profit margin needs to be increased
Do y'all really think that people who have been doing this for 15 years haven't thought of that and rejected it for a reason?
Answer is money, its just unprofitable, so shut up and pay 100 bucks for a sushi
maybe harvest the purple and the big ones equally so that both populations grow equally and neither destroy the kelp...
People don't get paid to clean up the purple urchins and ud be killing them purely for population control but people would say that's not ethically right either.
@@Da5thProject the urchins are invasive like lion fish people get paid to get them off shores in cali
@@Ranger-sl3qq actually purple sea urchins and Red Sea urchins are native along all the shores of the Pacific Northwest from California to Northern BC and Alaska
@@theanphiban7160 yeah but the recent explosion in their kelp consumption was an adaption I’m pretty sure, right? I forgot
@@Da5thProject those people are too short sighted to see the much greater dead from starvation once the kelp is gone
The red v purple urchin competition shows that evolution doesn't necessary favor having bigger balls.
In NZ, they are used as bait for fishing and you can go out and dive for as many as you want. Also called Kina.
Mate im from new zealand aswell and ive never heard the idea of using a kina for bait i tend to use mostly rainbow trout. Since id rather eat the kina. Mainly go diving out east coast around whakatane and sometimes to waihau bay
How the heck do you even use an urchin as bait for fish?
Last time I checked it is 50 per person, could just be north island
There's a catch limit on Kina, hope you realize that.
@@KLK01 you smash it under the water and the fish swoop in to eat it up!
During the 2014-16 El Nino, a heatwave on the west coast killed 95% of kelp, which were replaced by urchin barrens. Bull kelp has only started to recover in 2021.
You also need to mention the lack of sea otters, as a keystone species, without them the urchin population skyrockets, kills all the kelp, and screws over the ecosystem. The sea otters are killed by Killer Whales, who like their name, normally eat whales. As a result of human influence, killer whales haven't been able to find enough whales to eat, eating sea otters now. We have triggered a trophic cascade that screws over the whole ecosystem, and in the end the very urchin divers. we need to not only harvest quality urchins, but also those that damage the ecosystem. We cant remove the whales, so the only way to fix this damage is to remove more of them from the water.
Problem?
Super interesting
Cool story.
"Killer Whales" imply that they are whales that kill. The name does not imply they kill whales, else they would've been called "Whale Killers".
It's like saying Monkey-eating Eagles are monkeys that eat eagles.
@@anotoman123 Was gonna say orcas have a very broad list of things they feed on and only eat whales rarely
Thank you for making this documentary. I wanted to learn more about sea urchins, and thanks to you, I actually did learn about them in an entertaining way.
I distinctly remember during the holidays as a kid my dad would eat these sea urchin raw after diving for them at various beaches around Victoria, Australia.. completely oblivious to how expensive they are 🤣 I just thought they were cool ass little critters 😊
Here in South Korea, sea urchin bibimbop is considered a special meal early in spring.
I'm looking forward to eating the fantastic taste.
My buddy who is Korean tells me that Koreans enjoy Sea Urchins because apparently they can boost your sex drive and stamina haha
"Look at this benign creature"
Someone from Asia "wait we can eat that"
.......
It is also eaten in Europe by europeans. I am portuguese and my family eat it for centuries. Celts ate it.
Low number of natural enemies for sea urchins?
Homosapien: Let me introduce myself
First person to eat a sea urchin: Lemme just stick these gonads in my mouth.
The only gonads I'll glady stick in my mouth.
Okay. But who was the first person to look at a sea urchin and thought. I wonder if that tastes good😂 I never would have even thought about it
Robinson Crusoe? Like all foods, people once starved. They learned to try everything over thousands of years. I do also wonder if kings made their slaves and servants test eating things too.
I literally think that about most vegetables. “That looks terrible, I should put it in my mouth!”
some people like them kind of a metalic taste ... we call them Kina here. not my thing lol leave it to the Otters.
Literally thousands of people when they were starving before mass agriculture
I assume they must've been so hungry that they'd eat any shellfish they could find, and they found that one.
I played a drinking game and took a shot every time the word gonad was said and I finished all the available whiskey in Ohio.
Now I’m convinced to try my first sea urchin
I ate this like 20 years ago-in algeria. Local people used to collect them and sell them to beach goers. I have no clue if i ate it cooked or raw but all i can remember is that it was really tasty.
them: sea urchins are expensive
mean while philipines: ya one sea urchin cost for 1 dollar only
I went to a resort on a small island in the Pacific and there were so many of these but I didn't know at the time they were edible. I found out after when the show Lost showed the Japanese guy eating one. I still haven't tried it and it's been 25yrs.
They said if you eat caramel flan together with soy sauce, it would take like uni
@@jungschiffer8423 nope, fresh sea urchin taste like sea water and leaving creamy taste almost like seaweed after. its don't taste like salty caramel at all
@@rcordh5657 I've never eaten uni in my life and now I feel like I've been scammed 😂
@@jungschiffer8423 There is some sweetness to uni but not literally like caramel flan.
@@jungschiffer8423 No way. It's more like the foie gras of the sea, with a sea smelling creamy unique pungent flavor. There's sweet or bitter ones. Japan even has sea urchin spaghetti in saizeriya, which is super tasty.
In the 70s, I would dive for urchins with a crew off of the Channel Islands mainly, San Nicholas. We used hooka rigs connected to a manifold that was connected to our volume tanks for air. Our boat was spontaneous combustion for starting the engine and we had two large volume tanks. We had three divers and one tender on the surface. Our nets were on bicycle rims and we kept the tender busy. We sold to Maruhide at $0.17 to $0.20 a pound wet. The boat got paid first...fuel,food,etc.
Good times! Joe Biff burgers were the best at Fish Harbor.
My pre guess is the cost is a combination of timely shipping as it’s a seafood product that can rot very quickly unless under very specific conditions, the demand of certain places just isn’t high enough to have a healthy consistent market that can gradually lower its price, and probably because there’s some fenagling the same way diamonds are marked up by being “rare” or very uncommon in the market itself
Urchin Gonads = great band name.
I ate sea archins so much for FREE that I got sick of it but now I'm feeling for it again
we eat them fresh/with vinegar or it’s added as the main ingredient in a soup and it’s not that expensive here in the Philippines. When you go to the sea with rocks you can spot a sea urchin already and there are many of them in my place.
same here lol, just do a little walking and you can find one big enough to share with friends
HAHAHAHA natatawa ako kase pinupulot lang namin yan sa ilalim ng dagat tas nilalagyan ng suka tapos mababalitaan kulang na tig 100$ pala yan sa ibang bansa😭✊
It's not expensive because its low quality
Accidentally stepped on a sea urchin once on holiday in Greece when I was 8 - would NOT recommend… haha
Damn i can only imagine the pain taking out the spikes
Is it as painful as cactus
@@Dricrazybankedball imagine that but worse 👍
Same, in Asturias, Spain. Luckily, I was next to a local clinic and a nurse take it out.
Lucky you stepped on a sea urchin instead of a stone fish
Now it makes sense why the Sea Urchin ceviche at Dorsia is so expensive!
"oh! fancy cornflakes" was my first thought when I saw the thumbnail 🙃
Sea Urchin are fkn tasty and eating it actually helps the oceans as they're considered pests. I wish people would eat urchin instead of a tasteless destructive shark fin.
1. sea urchin taste like ass
2. shark fins are not for taste but its used brcause people think it's "medicinal"
@@millswill9878
Okay but aren't sharks endangered? They need their fins to navigate and swim in the ocean, without it, they'll die.
@@millswill9878 sea urchin tastes like the ocean
I just tasted this for the first time last week when I came to japan, and trust me when I say I didn't expect its taste. At first I was hesitant to try it bc I thought it would be bitter from all the videos I've seen of people opening it, but it was actually kinda sweet? I don't know how to explain it but I really liked it's taste.
This series is interesting, but usually, when a product/service is so expensive, the product/service is low, and demand is high. Or the way that the product or service is made s complicated, that can also increase the price; basic economics ☺️
Can’t argue with that lol
People really out here saying "we should eat less of these guys" don't know what kind of impact they make on the environment 😅
what? Can you just make a proper statement pls
@@isDatBoi or you could research it yourself ?
@@isDatBoi if you watched the video properly they mentioned how kelp forests have largely diminished due to how fast these guys reproduce and consume at the same time. kelp is basically like trees in the way it absorbs heat but for the ocean. which is the reason the ocean's waters are rising in temperature. they're important to the ecosystem, sure. but not if the area has none of their predators helping with population control. overfishing has led to this and it's our job now to be their predators to say the least.
Yea urchins are freakin pests
@@tendrylknyte8391 what you are suggesting is not a solution. We are beyond the point of leaving a single species and expecting nature to find balance because so many other aspects of nature have been disrupted by global warming. The urchins are now in far greater number than they naturally would have been if we as human were aware of our impact 100 years ago. The sea urchins natural predator otters were hunted to near extinction. By fishing now we are in fact fulfilling its role to keep sea urchin populations under a modicum of control.
In Sardinia (an island west of Rome) urchin fishing has been outlawed because of the high demand, but, during the winter you can get as many as you’d like. It’s my childhood! I would fish some with my father, pick them up with out hands or our a pair of marine scissors. Then, we cut them down the side and have some bread and white wine along side it! Sea urchins are by far one of my favorite foods :)
"No can do! Got an 8:30 res at Dorsia ... great sea urchin ceviche." - Paul Allen
Amazing how the value of sea urchins vary in each country. In the Philippines, it is well-known as Tuyom. Tuyom are being garnered by fishermen or any local people living near the sea without safety harness and just pure power of breathing. I know because I have witnessed it firsthand. It is also very cheap for I ate three tuyoms for just a dollar. It tastes better when partnered with the sellers' special sauce. Although we do not eat these at fancy restaurants, and can only be done when we do island hopping.
Yes
Tuyom (long-spined sea urchins) are inferior for eating due to their small size and are usually just ignored. What we do harvest all the time are called "Swaki", which are larger with shorter spines and are also sweeter-tasting.
In Chile we call them erizos de mar (sea porccupine) and they sell them in brine in plastic containers or jars at the local fish markets, they are still expensive but not as expensive as the ones in the video
Please please do not mention special sauce when talking about eating gonads ಠ_ಠ
I’d honestly suggest harvesting the purple sea urchin if they’re such an issue. You may not have as much marketability but in the long run you’d be giving the red urchins a better chance at reproducing and having food to feed on with the purples gone. There’s also shouldn’t be an issue with culling the purple heard since they are an invasive species, normally the government/ main conservation group will give the go ahead for their eradication.
I was thinking the same thing. What they're doing now, they're only hurting themselves in the long run and giving purple urchins more of a chance to thrive and take over. I feel like if they don't change things up, there won't really be a market for red urchins cause they'll be just as useless due to the purple urchins taking over.
No company would want to do that unless it's either in high demand or they get something in return.
There are a lot of red urchins and so they'd need more divers for that. With the added divers, they'd also need to pay them more than usual since the divers would need to stay there longer to get both red and normal (marketable) urchins.
Having more urchins would also lead to its value eventually going down. As long as there's no real impact on the companies' sales revenue, they won't care that much about environmental problems.
they should just reintroduce predators
It the same thing as having such with an old man. No one wants shriveled up gonads.
This is facts, Many people including me find the purple urchin to taste better too, because they are sweet
wow I never thought that sea urchins cost that much! i live in a coastal part of Cebu in Philippines were sea urchins (colorful one) are basically everywhere when it's low tide. when it happens, the people here will bring their own bucket to place the urchins they had picked. It's like a leisure activity and family get together here. some of them are families and they'll bring corn rice and coke w them to eat freshly picked urchins together. but if you don't feel to go there you can buy a bucket of urchins for $0.50 only
Is there a specific time to go pick them for more meat? I heard they are seasonal.
Yeah cause a plate of gonads that go for a hundred is more than 50 urchins and most of the cost comes from the cleaning and processing
Sadly there are not that many predators remaining to take control over the population of "bad" urshins in the ocean. At least thats the case in here in Chile 🇨🇱.
But one thing is true, urshin is a delicacy.
This is kind of funny because my town has been giving them away for free for years. They are invasive and people won't buy them so they just give them away for free
Always cracks me up how prized these are. Born in SB and having a Father that worked off-shore so every weekend visiting him, (parents divorced), we spent our weekends at the harbor as all of his buddy's were fishermen or Urchin divers and would see constant boxes of Urchin being offloaded at Santa Barbara Harbor. And this was way before Sushi was remotely popular. (I'm old) And as a kid, always wondered why so many were being harvested.
It was in Puerto Galera when I had my first sea urchin, fresh from a fisherman who had it in a basket and sold it for 50 pesos ($1) a piece. He had a bottle of vinegar with him, too. I can't remember the taste anymore since it's been years, but I remember how intimidated I was at it at first and how pleasantly surprised I was with its taste. Hope to have it again soon.
Fresh, it tastes like the sea with a bit of sweetness.
We use them for bait to catch fish, a very tasty sea creature that has fins and scales but more importantly, lots of meat. Those people should try fishing some time.
I was going to try to be a worker on one of these boats until I found out one of the benefits wasn't an _'all you can eat buffet'._ I guess I can't blame them though. I could eat uni all day long. _I'm talking about _*_ALL DAY LONG!_*
Here in Melbourne Australia my kids eat it straight out if the ocean! So delicious 😋
I live on an island where there are a lot of sea urchins but the prices are just about $3 - 4 per bucket or sometimes more cheaper.
I don't believe the $3 a bucket part.
Where are you, is it the phillippines? I'm gathering places to visit for fresh urchin
Very interesting! We have sea urchins (or Kina) in abundance in New Zealand. My father used to gather them all the time and we used to sit on the beach and eat them fresh from the shell.
My fave sea food by far we call them kina down here kina on toast with melted butter is the go to for me
“GONADS!”
hahaha same
I always wonder who the first person was who thought "let's crack that weird looking thing from the bottom of the ocean crack open and eat raw"..
I'm still trying to figure out who the fucc devoted to mix all the shit in mayonnaise and liked it then called it mayonnaise
Twenty-seven years ago I was at a well-known sushi bar in San Francisco and I tried fresh raw sea urchin for the first time.
It was so awful I had a violent gag reaction and it was all I could do to not throw up and seriously offend the sushi chef. I surreptitiously spit it out into my napkin and quickly slipped away to the restroom where I threw the napkin in the trash there...
I LOVE sushi, but the texture (mushy) and taste (I can't even describe; it was like the grossest fish taste) of the urchin was god-awful, and it's like my body just went, "Nope, ur not puttin' that sh*t in me..."
So, I'm not understanding this mania for it, obviously... 😝😅🤢
Go to the Philippines, particularly in provinces or areas near the beach. It's way cheaper, priced like a candy.
🤮😂
In Jeju, Korea we have Henyu which means Ocean ladies. They literally dive to collect all kinds of sea creatures just with a dive suit and a goggle.
Watching Spiky Gold Hunters on RUclips. New Zealand free diving for huge Sea Urchins. I was amazed at how they did it for 8 hours and free diving in really rough waters!
Sea Urchins: I think you're nuts
Humans : we like ur nuts
in Philippines, Sea Urchin (or Tuyom) is relatively common and consider here as pests
its a problem for beach goers and fishermen since it can get caught along with their nets
I love diving for sea urchin, to some it's a dalicacy we call it Kina in New Zealand 🇳🇿
Everytime she calls it 'Go-nads', I can't help but laugh
What is it called ? Then....
@@akashkalalkar9374 the pronunciation is incorrect
Sailing out before the sun rises must be a beautiful experience every day
I never thought I would hear the word gonads so many times in my life.
I’m from Bohol Philippines. Me and my family used to go in the beach in the afternoon bring rice and we get urchin by ourself and eat dinner. Otherwise you can buy this fresh from the fisherman. you can also buy this in the market which fishermen already put in the bottle.
Pag pag 😂
@@Richie4corn hahah are you saying it's yuck?
This is pretty common here in Philippines though, and it's cheap. It's so fun finding sea orchins and eating it together with you family members.♡♡
Sounds like you guys need to target the purple urchins, in Australia the purple urchins have the higher quality gonads and we have a low number of Red urchins, so if that tells me anything it's that you're doing it wrong.
"to find gonads like this" killed me
There are beautiful sea creatures.i got a a white one Urchin 🌸on my 🐬Reef Tank and does a wonderful job eating algae 24/7,cost me about £17 on online 😀
I always wonder how it taste...really would like to try it. In Malaysia even though I hv seen so many sea urchins under the sea in Pangkor Island, but never find anywhere in my country these things in any fish markets...
Didn't know there was such a equipment for this, I usually just use a potato sack and a knife to harvest
damn you a chad
@@lilmcnoggy1439 If that's all you got from this then congrats
@@regzlion7334 um what?
@@regzlion7334 do you know what a chad means???😕
@@lilmcnoggy1439 guess he’s a soy boy