Most shellfish are edible.
Commonly eaten shellfish that are edible include shrimp, crayfish, crab, lobster, clams, scallops, oysters, and mussels.
Shellfish collected by recreational fishers should never be eaten raw. They are not subject to the same strict food safety controls as commercially harvested shellfish.
The NSW Food Authority recommends eating shellfish harvested only under a recognised commercial program.
There are two groups of shellfish: crustaceans (such as shrimp, prawns, crab and lobster) and mollusks/bivalves (such as clams, mussels, oysters, scallops, octopus, squid, abalone, snail).
Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms.
Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some are found in freshwater.
The members of the shellfish families are: o Crustaceans: crabs, crayfish, langoustines, lobster, prawns, scampi and shrimp. o Molluscs: Bivalves - clam, mussel, oyster and scallops. Gastropods - cockle, limpet, periwinkle and snail. Cephalopods - calamari, cuttlefish, octopus and squid.
Shellfish aren't nearly as impressive on the omega-3 front as salmon. But oysters, shrimp, crab, lobster and mussels have about 25%-50% the omega-3s per serving as the healthiest fatty fish.
Depending on the type of shellfish you're eating, most have varying amounts of some hard-to-get micronutrients.
Shellfish are divided into two general categories that include crustaceans and mollusks Crustaceans are arthropods, related to the insect family, and easily identified by their hard, segmented bodies.
Most shellfish are low on the food chain and eat a diet composed primarily of phytoplankton and zooplankton.
Many varieties of shellfish, and crustaceans in particular, are actually closely related to insects and arachnids; crustaceans make up one of the main subphyla of the phylum Arthropoda.