Why Sea Urchins Are So Expensive | So Expensive

23. They said "gonads" 23 times in this video, in case you were wondering.

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.”

"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.

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.

Ignoring the purple urchins while eliminating their competitors. Yeah, good sustainable business plan right there…

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!

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.

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 YouTubers who forage sustainably like Outdoor Chef Life advocate harvesting them instead of the red ones

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.

I don't know if any sea urchin can be harvested, but I remember free diving once and the shallows were filled with sea urchins. We were trying so hard to float because it felt like there was less than a foot between us and the spines as we swam to the deep. They were just there, like a vast carpet.

BROTHER, YOU ARE THE BEST!!! You oooh really helped me!! THANK YOU VERY 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

As a CA, I totally support this. They are taking over and destroying kelp ecosystems here in the Monterey bay

Thanks for the algo to bring me back here. I really wanna have some uni now.

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.