If you’re a shrimp lover, read below before purchasing your next bag of store-bought shrimp. If you’ll be needing your swimmers in the near future, then you might think twice before you pop another farm-raised shrimp in your mouth.
Shrimp is consumed more than any other seafood in the United States, possibly because it’s been sold to us as healthy low-calorie protein. That’s certainly true for wild shrimp, but plenty of shrimp served around the country are farm-raised.
Farm-raised shrimp are often loaded with toxins and contain few health benefits. Shrimp farming boomed in the 1970’s, with enormous amounts of shrimp raised in man-made brackish ponds along the coast of foreign countries, like Indonesia, Thailand and Ecuador. Farmed shrimp can cause allergies, infections, neurological problems, and illnesses when consumed. There are many other reasons to only consume wild shrimp. Often, we aren’t told it’s imported, making it difficult to find safe shrimp.
Many shrimp farms operate in unsafe conditions. Farmed shrimp are regularly mislabeled, such as gulf shrimp that are farmed overseas. Imported shrimp may also be processed with chemicals and antibiotics restricted in the United States.
What does the above info mean for our bodies? Farmed shrimp contain Xenoestrogens, chemicals that mimic estrogen in your body. High levels of these chemicals can cause breast cancer or reduce sperm counts.
Lastly, farmed shrimp often spurs unethical labor practices. For all of these reasons, it’s much safer to eat wild-caught shrimp, and it may be safer to avoid shrimp altogether. To learn more, click here.
OBVIOUS Note: Farm-Raised Shrimp should not be used as a form of birth control. If you got that out of this article, farm-raised shrimp are the least of your worries.
