Yes, You Should Be Including More Omega 3 Fats in Your Diet – But How?

Would you like to increase your intake of Omega 3 fats but don’t know how to do it? Are you convinced by the evidence that omega 3 fatty acids are extremely important to your health, but worried by the claims that dietary supplementation is not mainstream. That it is somehow untested, a bit “alternative”, and even dangerous?

I know someone like that. He knows it’s important that he increase his intake of omega fats, he’s seen the evidence. But he just can’t seem to find good food sources at a reasonable price that will give him extra good fats in his diet. Yet he isn’t convinced that taking dietary supplements or capsules isn’t somehow “voodoo”. He’s even read that it’s dangerous.

Lets consider the options here. Firstly lets accept that there is now overwhelming evidence that the fats that come from fish oils and some other sources are in fact good for your health. So how do we increase our intake?

Doing so by diet is difficult. I’ll give you an example. Simple old meat, beef and lamb. Now it used to be that we got omega fats from beef and lamb, but not any more. Why? Because of how the animals are raised.

You see cows and sheep used to eat grass. And a grass fed animal has the right fats in the meat, so when we ate it we got them too. But cows and sheep aren’t raised on grass any more, or at least the ones you eat probably aren’t. They’re raised on grain.

That’s because grain feeding is the most cost efficient way of raising animals for beef and lamb. It’s all about profit, and using grain feeding techniques is more profitable. So those poor cows and sheep don’t really get to eat much grass any more. If any at all.

Grain fed meat doesn’t have much omega 3 fats in it.

Are you beginning to see the problem? Now lets talk about using supplements. Are omega capsules or supplements “alternative”?

The American Heart Association says: “Omega-3 fatty acids benefit the heart of healthy people, and those at high risk of – or who have – cardiovascular disease.”

And they offer recommendations for how much omega fats should be in your diet. They suggest at least 2 servings of fish a week, and also some other foods that contain these good fats. And if you have coronary heart disease they suggest at least 1 gram of EPA and DHA, the two beneficial fats, each day. Further if you need to lower your triglycerides you should have more, by capsule, supervised by a doctor.

Note that they say “by capsule”. That’s a dietary supplement. It’s OK with the AHA.

So by all means try and increase your intake by diet, that’s the best way. But it’s not easy to do for most of us.

If you can’t then take the word of the AHA and use a capsule, or omega 3 supplement. It’s better to take your good fats that way than not at all.