Wild salmon is a fantastic source of extra Omega-3 in your diet.

In our post about Fats and Oils, we mentioned that Omega-3 has become a buzzword lately; it’s cited as a cure for everything from heart disease to short attention span. But it’s not as simple as just popping your fish-oil capsules twice a day with meals, it’s really a question of balance.

Omega-3 and Omega-6 are fatty acids. They are essential to our health, and the body can’t synthesise them so it’s important that we get them in our diet. There’s a lot of information about Omega-3 out there, and you could easily get the impression that it’s the ‘good one’ and ‘Omega-6′ is bad for you. This is a bit misleading. Maintaining good health is actually more a question of balance than what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ (Sound familiar? Everything in moderation…?). We need a balance between Omega-3 and Omega-6 in our diet, as both of these fats are important.

Our normal Western diet, however, has become overloaded with Omega-6. We eat more processed foods high in vegetable fats with lots of omega-6, more meat, and less variety in general. Also, much of our meat, dairy and eggs are from grain-fed animals these days, which have higher levels of Omega-6 than grass-fed stock. With chronically higher levels of Omega-6 and lower levels of Omega-3 we’ve opened ourselves up to a bunch of problems including a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, ADHD and more. We need to re-discover the balance.

It would be great to say that we can remove the problem by completely avoiding processed food, eating only grass-fed meat, dairy and eggs and sprinkling olive oil rather than peanut oil on our salads. Realistically though, we know that’s a pipe-dream. Yes, aim for those things (grass-fed animals come with a whole host of benefits beyond Omega-3 by the way), but also consciously finding extra sources either in the form of oil supplements or Omega-3 rich foods is not a bad idea.

Here’s a few to add to your shopping list this week:
- Wild salmon, sardines or trout (farmed is likely grain-fed)
- Farmer’s market eggs from grass-eating chickens
- Olive and canola oils to replace whatever you’re using for cooking if not these two
- Walnuts (highest Omega-3 content for nuts)
- Flaxseeds (sprinkle them on your breakfast, or even better, get straight oil and gulp a teaspoonful)

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