Prawn
Food · Protein · Food, Typed Supps
Nearly all protein and water, with barely any fat — whichever prawn you buy.
Stage by stage
- Intake (Chewing): Short-fibred muscle with little connective tissue breaks down with minimal chewing.
- Stomach (Protein digestion): Acid and pepsin denature and begin cutting the highly digestible muscle protein.
- Small intestine (Absorption): Amino acids absorb along with iodine, selenium, zinc and B12.
- Tissues (Repair and thyroid): Amino acids feed muscle repair; iodine and selenium support thyroid hormone production.
Time to effect
- 1–2 hours: Amino acids from the meal reach peak availability in the blood.
Allergens
Contains: Crustaceans. May contain: Sulphites. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.
Eating patterns
Fits: Pescatarian, Keto, Low-FODMAP, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Halal.
Satiety
220 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — very high. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.
Environmental footprint
26.9 kg CO2e and 3515 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Prawns (farmed)" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.
Cost band
Pricey — roughly £28 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.
Key nutrients
Nutrition per 100g
- Calories: 91
- Protein: 20.7g
- Carbohydrate: 0g
- of which sugars: 0g
- Fat: 0.8g
- of which saturated: 0.2g
- Fibre: 0g
- Sodium: 345mg
Food vs. supplement
Not a supplement category — prawn is simply a lean protein that also happens to be one of the better dietary sources of iodine and selenium.
Kitchen tip
Cook green prawns briefly over high heat and stop the moment they turn opaque. Pre-cooked prawns are usually boiled in salted water, which is the main reason sodium varies so widely across this family.
Common myth
"Prawns are too high in cholesterol to eat often." In reality: Prawns carry high cholesterol with almost no saturated fat, and saturated fat is the far stronger dietary driver of blood LDL. The more practical concern in this family is the sodium picked up from brine and salted cooking water in pre-cooked product.
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