Shellfish: Nutritive Value, Health Benefits, and Consumer Safety

Abstract

Shellfish is a major component of global seafood production. Specific items include shrimp, lobsters, oysters, mussels, scallops, clams, crabs, krill, crayfish, squid, cuttlefish, snails, abalone, and others. Shellfish, in general, contain appreciable quantities of digestible proteins, essential amino acids, bioactive peptides, long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, astaxanthin and other carotenoids, vitamin B 12 and other vitamins, minerals, including copper, zinc, inorganic phosphate, sodium, potassium, selenium, iodine, and also other nutrients, which offer a variety of health benefits to the consumer. Although shellfish are generally safe for consumption, their exposure to diverse habitats, the filter feeding nature of shellfish such as oysters, clams, and mussels, and unhealthy farming and handling practices may occasionally entail health risks because of possible presence of various hazards. These hazards include pathogenic organisms, parasites, biotoxins, industrial and environmental pollutants, heavy metals, process-related additives such as antibiotics and bisulfite, and also presence of allergy-causing compounds in their bodies. Most of the hazards can be addressed by appropriate preventive measures at various stages of harvesting, farming, processing, storage, distribution, and consumption. Furthermore, consumer safety of shellfish and other seafood items is strictly monitored by international, governmental, and local public health organizations. This article highlights the nutritional value and health benefits of shellfish items and points out the various control measures to safeguard consumer safety with respect to the products.

Natural Preservatives for Extending the Shelf‐Life of Seafood: A Revisit

“…In general, seafood is rich in lipids, especially fats containing long-chain PUFAs (Venugopal & Gopakumar, 2017). Lipids play a major role in off-flavor and off-odor development and loss in the nutritional value of seafood (Mariutti & Bragagnolo, 2017).…”

Retracted: Prevalence, antibiotic resistance, and toxigenic gene profile of the Clostridium difficile isolated from molluscan shellfish

“…Bivalve molluscan shellfish (mostly oysters mussels, cockles, and clams) are imperative economic seafood products. Cockle, mussel, oyster, and clam are rich sources of proteins (alanine, proline, glutamic acid, glycine, leucine, arginine, isoleucine, methionine, lysine, glutamic acid, and aspartic acid), lipids (monounsaturated fatty acids, long‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and especially eicosapentaenoic acid [ cis ‐5, 8, 11, 14, and 17, C20:5], and docosahexaenoic acid [ cis ‐4, 7, 10, 13, 16, and 19, C22:6]), minerals (sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, zinc, selenium, Iron, and copper) and vitamins (A, B, D, E, K, folic acid, and niacin; Venugopal & Gopakumar, ).…”

Lipidomics analysis of juveniles’ blue mussels (Mytilus edulis L. 1758), a key economic and ecological species

“…Blue mussels are ecologically and economically important species, providing a range of crucial ecosystem services along with playing an important role in the economy of many rural and coastal regions [1]. The nutritional value of bivalves is also well documented, as they constitute a source of protein, amino acids, vitamins, trace metals and poly-unsaturated fatty acids-PUFA [2,3]. Globally, bivalve production is important for food security, accounting for over 15.5% of total aquaculture production in 2016 [4].…”