Shrimp vs. Oysters
Which seafood appetizer is best for the planet?
You’re at a seafood restaurant and you’re choosing your appetizer. Which should you go for, shrimp cocktail or oysters on the half shell?
As luck would have it, the podcast Gastropod came to me earlier this year to do two episodes of their show, one about oysters and one about shrimp. The result was a pair of terrific audio investigations that go very deeply into many of the questions I raised ten years ago in my book American Catch.
This post is by no means a substitute for listening to both episodes but I thought I’d just give a thumbnail sketch here on some of the issues that will be on your plate during this summer’s seafood season.
Many of us would like to start off that splurge meal with a shrimp cocktail. But in fact this is about the worst splurge we can make. Shrimp, particularly farmed shrimp, are notably terrible from an CO2 emissions point of view — by some estimates as bad as beef.
In terms of nutrition per unit of greenhouse gas emissions bivalves (oysters, clams, mussels) beat prawns (aka shrimp) handily. from
