CHRONIC. Rich in iodine, protein and vitamins, the shellfish is a delicacy for health and for the holidays, despite three precautions to take.
By Boris Hansel, with Guillaume Paret (video)
© HOUIN / BSIP via AFP
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Every Friday, find on Le Point.fr the nutrition chronicle of Pr Boris Hansel, endocrinologist and nutritionist at Bichat Hospital in Paris. He is also the host of the health channel PuMS on YouTube.
Oysters are regularly featured at the top of the superfood charts. But is it really justified?
Oysters have one major quality. It is a food that provides a good amount of protein while being relatively low in calories. For example, when you ingest a dozen oysters, you bring about 10 g of protein to your body. We are in the same order of magnitude as what a fashionable protein dairy like skyr or two eggs brings.
But there is another nutritional characteristic of oysters: they are excellent sources of micronutrients. In the foreground is iodine. Ten to twelve oysters is an average of 100 micrograms of iodine, while the needs of adults is 150 micrograms per day. This shell provides many other minerals, such as phosphorus and vitamins, especially vitamin B12. It therefore contributes to the maintenance of an optimal nutritional balance for good health.
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Another strong point of the oyster is the quality of the fats it contains. They belong to the omega 3 family, whose good reputation is second to none. Conversely, its flesh is low in saturated fats, those which are accused of raising blood cholesterol levels and clogging the arteries.
Salt, pollutants and bacteria
The oyster seems to be the superfood that should be eaten every day to be in good shape. Unfortunately, it also has its limitations. There are three main ones:
The first is its salt content. Twelve oysters provide the equivalent of three pinches of salt. It is worse if you eat them with bread and salted butter.
The second, still poorly evaluated, is its contamination by pollutants from the sea, in particular by microplastics. But we do not currently know how to measure the real health impact of oysters polluted in this way.
And then there is the risk associated with ingesting oysters contaminated with micro-organisms, such as bacteria, which can cause gastroenteritis. It’s relatively infrequent and benign for the majority of us, but it can be dangerous for people with weak immunity.
In summary and in practice:
- The oyster is clearly a nutritionally very rich food.
- Beware of people who must limit their salt intake, especially if they suffer from heart failure: a single meal with oysters can aggravate the disease.
- As a precautionary principle, given the doubts reigning over the pollutants that contaminate oysters, it is best not to eat them too often. We take advantage of it on occasion and, for those who wish, up to once or twice a week.