How the new ‘added omega 3’ foods from your local supermarket may not be all they seem.
Over the last few years, our supermarket shelves have been flooded with foods offering quick-fix solutions for our health. Margarines that lower your cholesterol, yoghurt that improves your digestion and soft drinks with added vitamins or antioxidants are becoming commonplace. But it seems that more and more companies are choosing to raise their products’ health credentials by adding omega 3 essential fatty acids. So is there anything to gain from these newly fortified foods?
Omega 3 essential fats could be considered a prudent choice for food manufacturers wishing to give their product a healthy boost and encourage consumers that their brand holds the edge in our increasingly health-conscious society. These essential fats possess a plethora of benefits and scientific research has shown that a regular intake of omega 3 fish oils can help to combat inflammation, alleviate depression and reduce the risk of heart disease and dementia.
There is now such overwhelming evidence as to the benefits of these omega 3 fatty acids that the government recommends at least 450mg omega 3 fish oils daily as a part of a healthy diet. As omega 3 fatty acids are only predominantly available in beneficial levels from oily fish, a food many of us do not include in our diet, its addition to one we do eat regularly would, on the outset, seem an excellent solution for obtaining our daily intake.
What the manufacturers of these omega 3 yoghurts, eggs, bread, fish fingers and baked beans fail to highlight to their consumers, however, is just how much of their product an individual would need to consume in order to obtain an effective level of these essential fats.
For a product to confer any significant benefit, it should contain high levels of omega 3 in its two most important forms, DHA and EPA. DHA is integrated in all our brain-cell membranes where it exerts important functions, especially relating to memory, and it is also a key nutrient for the efficient functioning of the retina in the eye as you age. EPA acts in the cells of the cardiovascular system where it has been shown to help reduce the risk of fatty plaques that can contribute to heart disease and is also well-known for its anti-inflammatory properties and hence its joint health benefits.
A closer look at many products with ‘added’ omega 3 on the supermarket shelves reveals that a realistic portion of a product, such as two slices of bread, one yoghurt or a glass of milk, provides only a fraction of the recommended daily intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids and many do not even state how much of the omega 3 within the product is in the important DHA or EPA forms.
For instance, to obtain the government recommendation of the nutrient from one popular brand of omega 3 fish fingers, you would need to eat over 11 fish fingers every day. As this plateful would also contain 640 calories and 27g of fat, you can see that this may not be the most convenient or healthiest solution! Bread with added omega 3 would require you to eat 11 slices every day and five glasses of milk with added omega 3 would have to be drunk in order to reach an intake that could confer any benefit. In this light it could be argued that companies have hoodwinked their customers into thinking that their products offer a significant omega 3 benefit when often the omega 3 content of these foods is negligible at best. Although they may complement a diet that already contains a high intake of omega 3 rich oily fish, they are unable to adequately substitute the benefits of a regular intake of oily fish.
If you are one of the 66% of the UK who does not eat fish on a regular basis but would like to bolster your omega 3 intake, your best bet is to take a pure omega 3 fish oil supplement. Not only are these a more convenient way of achieving a high level of omega 3 in a concentrated form, they are also purer and therefore contain fewer pollutants such as PCBs or dioxins than are found in fresh fish. Unlike many of the fortified foods on the market, they can also guarantee a naturally high level of DHA and EPA. Furthermore, a comparison of prices between fish oil supplements and fortified foods shows that unlike omega 3 bread or baked beans, a pure omega 3 supplement can provide your full recommended daily intake at a fraction of the cost.
1 Healthspan Concentrated Omega 3 capsule equals these omega 3 foods:
11 Fish fingers
11 Slices of bread
5 Glasses of milk
4 Yoghurts
3 Tins of baked beans
3-4 Eggs
44g Margarine
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