Guide to seafood and shellfish including calorie, cholesterol and nutrient content.

Seafood and shellfish is generally divided into four types which are outlined below:

All types of seafood and shellfish are excellent sources of protein that are low in calories and fat.

This type of low-fat protein is excellent for people who are trying to lose weight or who purely want to follow a sensible and healthy diet.

Protein is great for filling you up for longer periods after eating and therefore reducing the need or desire to snack on unhealthy or sugary snacks before the next meal. It also satisfies you quicker during eating, meaning that you will tend to be able to eat less before you feel completely full.

In addition, all types of seafood and shellfish are rich in vitamins and minerals including B12, iron, zinc, niacin and selenium.

Vitamin B12 is good for preventing memory loss and cardiovascular disease, whilst the mineral selenium helps combat arthritis and keeps hair and skin healthy and glowing.

Seafood and shellfish are clearly beneficial and integral to a varied, healthy and nutritional diet, yet there are also other supposed benefits too, oysters, for one, are supposed to be highly aphrodisiacal, which can't be a bad thing!

Before the invention of sophisticated enough equipment that could measure and examine the content of various food items, medical and dietary experts warned against eating large amounts of seafood and shellfish because it was previously thought that they contained a lot of cholesterol. People on a low-cholesterol diet were especially warned not to eat seafood or shellfish.

However, since then, new studies have revealed that, in reality, the opposite is actually true and that seafood and shellfish contain very little cholesterol indeed. They are in fact extremely low in cholesterol.

The analysis of bivalve molluscs like scallops, mussels and clams has led scientists to discover that these bivalves actually contain high amounts of non-cholesterol sterols. These are substances that in actual fact prevent any cholesterol present in a meal to be absorbed into the body.

What most people don't know is that cholesterol does not come from eating foods containing cholesterol. Cholesterol is manufactured by the body itself and comes from eating an excess of foods with large amounts of saturated fat such as fried foods, processed food and sugary cakes and biscuits.

So, in actual fact, seafood and shellfish are basically low in cholesterol and fat. To give you an idea, crab and lobster have approximately the same amount of cholesterol as the dark meat of chicken, whilst prawns have up to twice as much as the dark meat in chicken.

As mentioned previously, seafood and shellfish are extremely low in calories and fat, as well as cholesterol too. They are excellent foods to use as part of a calorie-controlled diet. Below are the calories and fat content for some seafood and shellfish produce:

• Prawns: 24 calories each; 0g fat
• Oysters: 8 calories each; 0.2g fat
• Mussels: 9 calories each; 0g fat
• Scallops: 31 calories each; 0g fat
• Clams: 7 calories each; 0g fat
• Lobster (100g): 89 calories; 0.9g fat
• Squid (100g): 175 calories; 7g fat
• Crab (100g): 83 calories; 0.7g fat

The various types of seafood and shellfish can be cooked in a variety of ways; sometimes the simplest methods of cooking are the best.

To cook lobster or prawns, for example, it is often sufficient to just cook them for a few minutes in boiling water. Squid, on the other hand, is best deep-fried, pan-fried or pan-seared. And, mussels are great steamed, although they can be grilled or baked afterwards.

Really, you can be extremely imaginative when cooking seafood and shellfish, although often it will depend on the recipe that you are using or the dish you wish to prepare.

Before cooking your dish, always ensure that you have thoroughly cleaned and prepared the seafood items to be used. This will often involve rinsing properly under a cold running tap in order to remove dirt and sand, or cutting out and discarding pieces of the item that is not consumed by humans.

You can use seafood and shellfish for the following:

• Rice and pasta dishes
• Sauces
• Curries
• Soups
• Sushi dishes
• Starters
• Breaded and deep-fried
• Cooked and dressed with olive oil, parsley, garlic and lemon
• Pizza toppings
• Dips

• Seafood paella
• Moules marinières
• Garlic prawns
• Prawn curry
• Seafood risotto
• Deep-fried squid rings
• Prawn cocktail
• Crab cakes
• Lobster Thermidor
• Clam chowder
• Spaghetti alle vongole