Why Are We Eating So Much Shrimp ?

We need your help with a little social experiment.

Between 1980 and 2005, the amount of shrimp consumed by Americans nearly tripled, from 1.4 pounds per person to 4.1 pounds per person.

Shane Frederick, an M.I.T. management professor, has made a hobby of asking anyone he meets why Americans eat so much more shrimp today than they did 25 years ago. He thinks he has found a very interesting pattern in the responses. He wants to test his hypothesis on Freakonomics blog readers.

Here is my request: without researching the topic via Google or other means, and without reading the comments that other blog readers have left, think about why shrimp consumption has gone up so much. Leave your answer, along with your occupation, your college major, your gender, and your age in the comments section.

In a few days, we will tally up the results, present Shane’s hypothesis, and see how it fares.