 what's going on guys i am here with dutchie and he is going to help me explain the nutrient density of various shellfish and by shellfish we are referring to crab lobster mollusks like mussels oysters clams shrimp any fish with a shell essentially so dutchie is um dutchie's a little cold right now because he just got out of the fridge but maybe he'll he'll spring up a little bit later so shellfish really is one of the most nutrient dense foods we can consume it's up there with organ meats egg yolks the highest quality off cuts there are there are not any foods that to me take value over shellfish from a nutrient density perspective they are all as valuable as things like liver um all the foods that i talk about cod liver oil any super nutrient dense food shellfish is up there the reason i like shellfish so much is because you are able to purchase a lot of it alive at a much fresher quality than other foods that we have access to in addition to that it is a super approachable food in a sense that you know people like shrimp they like clams they like oysters whereas things like liver and a lot of the other organ meats that i tend to eat on the carnivore diet people aren't really as much of a fan of the main difference between shellfish and other fin fish is of course the accessibility it's obviously much easier to go to a beach and pick up some clams or oysters than it is to spear or reel in a fish from the ocean so there's plenty of evidence on various coastal regions for use of seafood and mollusks and mass exploitation of these nutritional resources during the upper paleolithic period there's also plenty of evidence that neanderthals used fire to open up these shells and interestingly enough they tended to use the shells as decorations whether as jewelry or kind of status symbols of the person so whether or not these foods played a role in the actual evolution of humans due to the ease of caloric access it is safe to say that various indigenous groups did prize shellfish they specifically fed these foods to pregnant women a nursing woman children couples looking to conceive it was one of the foods that was gathered along with things like fish row liver very nutrient dense animal foods if we want to talk from a scientific and paper value perspective of what nutrients occur in the shellfish the main discrepancy is the high preformed dha content normally in a room in an animal you can only get preformed dha from consuming the brain tissue in regards to actual vitamin content of these foods they tend to be excellent sources of the b vitamins as well as vitamin d3 to a lesser extent these foods have pretty good amounts of all the fat soluble vitamins you know the shellfish has vitamin a it has vitamin e it has vitamin k2 it's an amazing source of all the minerals and elements of course iodine but the main thing that shellfish has over other foods is specifically the dha content and of course this correlates directly with how fatty the item is in the case of muscles here they have a bit less fat than something like oysters so oysters would have a higher dha content per calorie for anyone not confident in the nutritional value of shellfish there were literally groups of people that subsisted off of shellfish that were in just as good health as any other indigenous group in the liama stephens is the fat of the land when he examined skeletal remains of coastal tribes that subsisted only off of shellfish the skeletal structure the development of the face all of the markers for optimal health were the same as groups of eskimos that were living off of fish mammalian meat so there's evidence anthropologically speaking that you can be just as healthy consuming only shellfish versus ruminant meat and i would argue that someone consuming shellfish now is going to be much healthier and get a much higher nutrient density in their diet because people tend not to consume those offcuts those organ meats that are necessary to get complete nutrient density in the context of a whole ruminant animal and you can imagine the reason being that the shellfish and this seafood is more nutrient dense nowadays is that it is a complete food when you're eating a whole shrimp a whole muscle a whole clam a whole oyster that is equivalent to you eating essentially the whole animal whether it's a cow or a pig or a sheep or a lamb same thing with eating things like fish eggs or fish row you're essentially it would it would essentially be like shrinking down the entire cow and eating it in one bite to get the complete nutritional profile but with foods like mussels and oysters that is much more approachable to do now obviously there are pros and cons to shellfish the pros being it's a very approachable food it's super nutrient dense the cons are of course the concerns with farmed fish pollution in the water and unfortunately in this case when the water is polluted it can be so polluted and it can affect the taste of the animals so much that you cannot consume it in the case of grain fed steak we can cover up the awkward taste of grain fed fat by cooking it by putting salt and pepper on it in the case of oysters I have literally gotten oysters that have smelled like sewage and I smelled the outside of the oyster and it didn't smell right so I was like let me open it up I opened up the oyster it was one of the worst smells I have ever smelled in my life pure rotten sewage so one of the major cons is the quality of the shellfish that you're getting really does correlate with the sourcing of the ocean and that doesn't really even matter if it's wild to quarter not unfortunately it could still be in polluted water so you know one of the main reasons I don't really consume shellfish as much as I would like to is partially because of that reason another thing that people don't really mention is it can be a little bit expensive you know this crab it's like 25 bucks just for the crab I mean obviously things like mussels and clams are actually very affordable but things like shrimp lobster crab tend to be on the slightly more expensive side but at the end of the day with the amount of money people spend on bs I don't think any sort of food budget is going to be too expensive in the right context so if you guys are looking to increase the nutrient density of your diet in a really approachable and delicious way this is definitely one of the best ways to go about it I know I spout all the time about liver egg yolks you know eating all these foods like fish row but this is an alternative you can have mussels crab lobster all of these things several times per week the real crutch is going to be sourcing high-quality wild cut stuff and figuring out how the nutrient density is going to tie in to your overall diet if you're not consuming it too frequently I'm sure some people are going to ask about canned versions of these foods canned oysters canned mussels canned crab meat that's pasteurized obviously the fresh version is far better it's going to have a higher vitamin c content the nutrients are going to be more preserved but I wouldn't say I would say there's lesser evils you know you could buy fresh pasteurized crab meat but that's going to be way more expensive than the one that has additives in it you can buy canned oysters or you can buy fresh packed oysters at an Asian market you know you could buy clams that are already shoved you could buy raw clam meat in certain places that's going to be far superior to the canned versions the smoked versions especially things that are packaged in oil so for those of you guys who are asking that if canned food is the only thing you have access to that's fine if you guys want to talk about thinned fish and things like anchovies and sardines of course those are great too the main reason I'm focusing on shellfish in this video is because of that accessibility reason you know the access that we would have had to shellfish is much easier than thinned fish so thank you guys for watching if you guys have any additional questions please let me know if you guys want to check out my amazon shop there is some canned cod liver oil on there that I view as a nutrient dense food to achieve some nutrient density in your diet if you guys are on twitter or instagram please drop me a follow and last but not least if you guys would like to reach out to me in regards to optimizing the nutrient density of your diet you can shoot me an email frankatefano at gmail.com or contact me through the form on my website