Blood Clam

These delightful little bugs have a deep red color due to their large amounts of hemoglobin in their blood. The blood of other types of clams is generally transparent, so the difference looks obvious.

Although they look like tiny bloody monsters, blood clams are a delicacy in many parts of the Indo-Pacific region and are also a local home-cooked dish in the Chaoshan coastal region of China.

Concerns about eating blood clams come from the way the creatures feed, filtering 40 liters (10.5 gallons) of water every day and using the microorganisms in the water as food. This also ensures that blood clams will absorb a variety of bacteria and viruses, making them difficult to eat safely under any circumstances. In areas with particularly dirty water, blood clams harvested there may spread diseases such as hepatitis A, hepatitis E, dysentery and typhoid fever.

In 1988 in Shanghai, 300,000 people became seriously ill and 31 people died due to eating. It is estimated that 15% of people who eat blood clams will contract one or more diseases.

Puffer fish

Did you know that when these cute little things are nervous, they can swell up to scare others? But many of us know that the fatal thing about small things is not the appearance, but the inside. If you tried to put it on the table at some diner, these little things would probably kill you.

For a long time, the Japanese have called the art of cooking puffer fish Fugu, and fugu has also been called the most dangerous ingredient by Japanese food lovers.

Pufferfish contains tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin that is 200 times more lethal to the human body than cyanide. The toxin is contained in the fish's reproductive organs, liver and intestines. We won’t eat these parts, but how to cut them clean is a dangerous technical job.

In order to kill pufferfish, Japanese chefs must undergo three years of specialized training, and finally pass the exam before they can kill fish for customers. Why is it so strict? Because we fools who eat puffer fish have put our lives in the hands of the chef. No one wants to receive a lunch box just because of greed.

As long as 0.1 mg of tetrodotoxin is eaten into the mouth, it is basically impossible to survive. First, you'll feel numbness around your mouth, followed quickly by paralysis, which can eventually lead to death. This death may last 20 minutes or up to 24 hours. People who die from tetrodotoxin will remain conscious throughout the process, making pufferfish the deadliest edible fish.