Variation of the lipids and fatty acids in marine shrimps consumed in Venezuela.

There are three marine shrimp species in the Venezuelan internal market, two of them are native species, from fisheries, Farfantapenaeus brasiliensis and Litopenaeus schmitti, and one is an exotic species and farmed, L. vannamei. The objectives of this paper were to determine the possible variation of lipid content and fatty acid composition of these species, even under different culture conditions (e.g. feed used). The lipid content in all the species are higher (5 to 10 times) that the data from previous papers deal with marine shrimps, ranged from 4.8 to 10.9%, suggesting that its impact in the human health should be reviewed. At the same time, there were detected differences between the lipid content and fatty acids composition of the species. Wild L. schmitti had the highest lipid content (10.9%), following by wild F brasiliensis (9.0%), cultured L. schmitti (4.8% to 7.1%) and cultured L. vannamei (5.1% to 6.2%). On the other hand, L. schmitti fed on commercial feed had the highest proportion of EPA and/or DHA, following by L. vannamei fed on the experimental feed, wild L. schmitti and fed with the experimental feed and wild F. brasiliensis.