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For the past several years, I’ve increasingly recommended avoiding most seafood due to widespread contamination, primarily by mercury, PCBs and other environmental pollutants.

Shrimp, however, due to their small size, have generally been considered to be one of the safer kinds of seafood. But a recent article1 may make you think twice about eating shrimp, unless you know it’s wild-caught from a clean source.

A major part of the problem is
farmed shrimp which, like farmed fish, tends to be far more contaminated than its wild-caught counterparts. Aquatic farms of all kinds also pose grave dangers to ecological systems. Another problem is lack of inspection and oversight of imported seafood.

According to the featured article:

“90 percent of the shrimp we eat has been imported, but less than two percent of that gets inspected by US regulatory agencies. What’s the big deal?

Imported shrimp, more than any other seafood, has been found to be contaminated with banned chemicals, pesticides… and it skirts food-safety authorities only to wind up on your plate. The number one reason for all that: the dirty conditions in which farmed shrimp are raised.”

What You Need to Know About Farmed Shrimp

As a result of declining seafood stocks of all types, aquatic farms of various kinds have become big business. Unfortunately, aquatic farming has turned loose all sorts of environmental hazards, all of which ultimately threaten your health.