sodium in shrimp

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LovesDogsAndBooks
LovesDogsAndBooks Posts: 190 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Since they are salt water creatures I expected them to contain sodium, but I just noticed that a 4 oz serving of frozen raw shrimp from Walmart contains over 1,000 mg, and the equivalent of I think the Aldi brand has only 230! Do some companies add salt to frozen shrimp? Otherwise, why would there be such a difference?

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  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    LovesDogsAndBooks wrote: »
    Since they are salt water creatures I expected them to contain sodium, but I just noticed that a 4 oz serving of frozen raw shrimp from Walmart contains over 1,000 mg, and the equivalent of I think the Aldi brand has only 230! Do some companies add salt to frozen shrimp? Otherwise, why would there be such a difference?

    Is that in the shrimp, or in cocktail sauce?
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    A saline solution is used to get the mass market high volume shrimp out of their shells. This adds the sodium to the vast majority of the shrimp you'll find at high volume mass marketers.

    Here in Texas, my local Wal-Mart has one brand of wild Gulf of Mexico caught shrimp which are not processed in this manner, and are available, at least locally, at a not too steep premium, with dramatically lower sodium content as you found at Aldi.
    Fascinating. Thanks!
  • LovesDogsAndBooks
    LovesDogsAndBooks Posts: 190 Member
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    No cocktail sauce, just a bag of frozen raw shrimp, de-veined, no shells, tail on. I think the ones at Aldi's had the shells on, so with what Jerome said above that would explain the difference. I'll make sure to buy the ones with the shells on from now on. Thanks for that info!
  • rosey35
    rosey35 Posts: 150 Member
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    Run the shrimp under water before using
  • amtyrell
    amtyrell Posts: 1,449 Member
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    Also they are frozen sometimes in a salt water solution
  • LovesDogsAndBooks
    LovesDogsAndBooks Posts: 190 Member
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    When I use frozen shrimp I usually thaw them first, rinse them, then cook them, so if there's any salt on the outside of them, that should come off. Not sure whether this salt solution mentioned above that's used for peeling them penetrates the flesh. I'll just stick to the ones with shells from now on.

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