Experts Claim Having a Shellfish Diet Is Better Than a Vegan Diet!

Everyone wants to live healthily. We all want to have a physically active and fit body which enables us to live our life to the fullest. However, most of us face a difficulty in living a healthy lifestyle because we’ve grown up having a poor diet. We’re accustomed to eating a diet filled with oily, salty, and fatty foods which may be the culprit behind our deteriorating health. While some health enthusiasts claim that becoming a vegan is the best type of diet to achieve a healthy and fit body, a new study revealed that incorporating seafood (especially shellfish) in your diet is actually a better choice than going all vegan.

The New Study

The new study focuses on assessing the carbon emissions yielded from your seafood choice. The researchers were able to determine that farmed catfish produced more carbon emissions than farmed chicken. While eating shellfish revealed to be more climate-friendly, and health-friendly than having a pure and strict vegan diet according to the study’s results. The new study also suggests that not all pescetarianism isn’t created equally, which brings out the debate when it comes to ranking the fish’s sustainability and determining which seafood is best to have for a healthy diet.

For example, the Monterey Bay Aquarium claims that farmed catfish are the best choice for your healthy diet. However, when researchers assessed the catfish’s full life cycle as well as the resources needed to support the farm, they found that the catfish’s diet was pretty dirty.

Aside from that, the company needs to control their the catfish tanks’ conditions to procreate them successfully. This means that most fish farms need to invest in recirculating pumps, which in turn require significant energy from coal plants. This causes the catfish not only to diminish its original nutritional value, but it also contributes to the increase of carbon emissions in the environment.

The Study’s Method

One researcher named Ray Hilborn also revealed that eating lobster bisque is also a bad choice. He revealed that the motors that were used to check its pot burn much gas. Hence, the lobster itself leaves a terrible carbon footprint. While eating clams, mussels, oysters, and scallops on the other hand release much less of a carbon footprint.

Moreover, seafood is healthier to eat since it’s packed with nutrients. While the study certainly gives a guide to health and fitness, as well as enthusiasm in picking up the right foods to incorporate in their healthy diet, the World Resources Institute food expert, Richard Waite, commented how the study didn’t include the land animals in the study.

Nothing Beats the Shellfish Farm

Waite noted that agriculture, especially from farmers responsible for clearing the forests were the ones who mainly contribute to half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. If the researchers have included the animals feeding on lands in the study, he’d no doubt they’ll discover a significant increase in carbon footprints released in livestock – making fish look like a better food choice than meat. He added that the type of land used in clearing the farms would’ve also contributed to the degradation of food sustainability. He cited the shrimp farms found in Southeast Asia as an example.

Overall, Waite agreed with the researcher’s major conclusions of the said study. He admits that shellfish farms are difficult to beat since it doesn’t use land, freshwater, nor fertilizers to propagate. In fact, all it needs is coastal water, which can be found everywhere, since the oceans dominate the world. They’re also the least chemically induced. If you consider these factors together, shellfish becomes the most environment-friendly and healthy option to incorporate in your diet aside from beans and veggies. The Seafood Industry Research Fund supported the study through a grant.