Questions and thoughts about fish oil supplements.

[g_na]

A recent conversation about fish brought up the topic of fish oil supplements. Since I am, shall we say, opposed to the fishing industry in general, I started thinking about why fish oil is supposed to be healthy, and whether or not there were any alternatives.

Here's a little background info about why fish oil is considered healthy: It is a

Comments

[atomic_usagi]

I believe flax seeds have as much if not more than fish. Rob went through a phase where he just poured a tablespoon or so of flaxseed oil on all his food. It has a pleasant nutty flavor. The biggest draw back is that it doesn't keep very well. One alternative is to just keep whole flax seeds on hand and grind them and sprinkle the dust on food as you need it.

[eto_theipi]

It does sound like it would be evolutionarily unsound to rely on fish for EPA, which suggests that the ALA -> EPA conversion isn't prohibitively difficult.

This paper's abstract makes it sound like your body will convert more ALA into EPA if your diet doesn't include as much:
Dietary intake and status of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in a population of fish-eating and non-fish-eating meat-eaters, vegetarians, and vegans and the precursor-product ratio of α-linolenic acid to long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids: results from the EPIC-Norfolk cohort.
CONCLUSIONS: Substantial differences in intakes and in sources of n-3 PUFAs existed between the dietary-habit groups, but the differences in status were smaller than expected, possibly because the precursor-product ratio was greater in non-fish-eaters than in fish-eaters, potentially indicating increased estimated conversion of ALA. If intervention studies were to confirm these findings, it could have implications for fish requirements.
Here's one that directly addresses your

[scanner_darkly]

As someone who is regretfully (but willingly) cutting out fish from his eating, I'm interested in what is found out. Unfortunately I don't have any answers. :(

[death_by_soy]

Algae+