Shrimp

Shrimp are the shellfish most people will actually eat, and they earn their place: the leanest complete protein in the sea, three-quarters of a day's selenium, half the B12 and a useful dose of iodine in a serving that cooks in three minutes.

In the 50 Man Foods they go into fried rice with eggs and coconut aminos, where they replace the soy sauce and the seed oil the takeaway version would carry.

  • Once or twice a week
  • 1 recipe
  • Shellfish
  • Updated Sep 2026

What it supplies

Nutrient · per 100 g, cooked (about eight large shrimp) Amount % DV Relative amount
Protein 24 g 48%
Selenium 42 mcg 76%
Vitamin B12 1.4 mcg 58%
Copper 0.29 mg 32%
Iodine ~35 mcg 23%
Choline 115 mg 21%

Source: USDA FoodData Central.Percent Daily Values are based on adult reference intakes. The bars stop at 100%; the numbers do not.

Why it works

Selenium is what the enzymes that activate thyroid hormone and recycle glutathione are built from; low selenium means a sluggish thyroid and poor antioxidant defence in the testes. Iodine is the other half of thyroid hormone and is scarce in a diet without seafood or dairy.

Shrimp deliver both with almost no fat, which makes them the protein to pair with the fats this diet supplies from elsewhere — butter, cream, tallow.

How much, how often

  • 150–200 g

    Once or twice a week

    Covers selenium and a good share of iodine and B12.

  • Two minutes a side

    C, not O

    Just opaque and curled; a tight O is overcooked.

How to buy and prepare it

Wild-caught, frozen at sea, shell on. US Gulf, Argentine red and Pacific spot prawns are good; most farmed shrimp from Southeast Asia is raised in dense ponds with antibiotics. Read the label for sodium tripolyphosphate — it makes shrimp hold water and taste of soap — and buy without it.

Frozen is usually fresher than the 'fresh' counter, which is thawed frozen shrimp on ice.

Thaw under cold running water, peel, and cook hot and fast: two minutes a side in butter or tallow until just opaque and curled into a C. An O means overcooked. Salt at the pan. The shells make a ten-minute stock for the rice.

Frozen shell-on shrimp keep six months. Thawed shrimp should be cooked within a day. Cooked shrimp keep two days refrigerated.

Recipes that use it

In these guides

Questions

Aren't shrimp high in cholesterol?
About 190 mg per 100 g, and it does not matter: dietary cholesterol has little effect on blood cholesterol for most people, and shrimp have almost no saturated fat. The 2015 US guidelines dropped the cholesterol limit.
Wild or farmed?
Wild where you can. Well-run farms exist — look for certification — but the default imported farmed shrimp is raised in conditions worth avoiding, and it is usually treated with phosphates.
How often should I eat shrimp?
Once or twice a week, alongside oysters and fish, covers selenium and iodine. There is no reason to avoid it more often; the mercury in shrimp is among the lowest of any seafood.