Eli5: why squid “meat” is so different from other animals?

Most meat that we buy from the supermarket comes from vertebrate animals (ie animals with a spine and bones).

Squid however, are a type of invertebrate animals that don’t have bones like vertebrates do (except a beak). This means that a squid’s flesh has to function for movement and for structure, where a vertebrate animal’s flesh only has to provide movement because bones provide structure. As such, a squid’s flesh is different from a vertebrate animal’s flesh and therefore can have a “chewier” and more “rubbery” feeling when we eat it.

Edit: spelling and phrasing. Thank you to all the culinary experts for pointing out that indeed, squid meat is only rubbery when overcooked.

It might not fully explain it but its worth noting that Cephalopods (the family containing Squid, Octopuses and Cuttlefish), split off into their own evolutionary tree at a very early point, long before the development of any sort of complex nervous system or a lot of other things we would consider “normal” for an animal such as vision.

They are so far removed from most other animals that they’re a pretty good example of what intelligent alien life could look like.

Probably a pretty good reason why they taste a bit different to anything else 😉

2 reasons:

1. gravity works differently in water so the density would be a bit different. they wouldn’t need the same muscles as an animal standing on land
2. they’re boneless. other animals usually have a hard thing that their meat attaches to, which can be on the inside (mammals, vertebrate fish) or the outside (crabs, insects). the only part of a squid that is hard is the beak, so it ends up developing pretty differently

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Not an expert at all. But from my personal experience, very fresh squid, cooked correctly has a very similar texture to steak. When I’ve had chewy squid (and other seafood) it is less fresh and/or cooked wrong.