In terms of your circulatory health, it's not really the cholesterol in prawns you need to worry about. It's the fats in prawns that stimulate your body to produce blood serum cholesterol. Depending on the kinds of fats you eat, your body will produce either healthy cholesterol or unhealthy cholesterol, which directly affect your level of risk for heart disease and other circulatory disorders.
About Cholesterol
Nutritionists have known about the bad cholesterol, low-density lipoproteins, for decades. LDL clumps up in your bloodstream, hardening your arteries and making it harder for your heart to pump blood. Your body prouces LDL cholesterol when you eat foods that contain saturated fats. HDL cholesterol was discovered in the late 1990s. Produced when you eat unsaturated fats, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol cleans your bloodstream of harmful substances -- including LDL cholesterol. This makes HDL cholesterol good for your circulatory health.
Prawn Basics
Prawns are a small crustacean found in all oceans but the Arctic. Similar to shrimp, their bodies are similar to tiny lobsters and their meat has a similar sweet taste and chewy consistency. You can find prawns in many recipes, ranging from shishkebab to batter-fried to enhancement for salad or pasta.
Prawn Nutrition Information
Although each individual animal will have its own unique balance of nutrients and chemicals, the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides data on a "typical" serving of three 3 oz. prawns. According to the USDA, a serving this size contains approximately 0.6 g of saturated fat and 1.8 g of unsaturated fat. This is a tiny amount of the substances that stimulate your body to produce blood serum cholesterol, and thus has a negligible effect on your cholesterol levels.
Cooking Method
Many methods for cooking prawns use ingredients that contain high levels of cholesterol, such as buttered prawns and prawns with pasta in alfredo sauce. When considering prawns and cholesterol, be sure to take into account the foods you are eating your prawns with. They are much more likely to have an effect on your cholesterol levels. To keep your prawns cholesterol-friendly, eat them served without foods high in saturated fats. For example, you can fry them with spices, or boil them plain and serve with a salad or olive oil sauce.
References
- U.S. Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
- CDC: About Cholesterol
- "There Will Be Oil"; Good Eats, Season 12, Episode 4
