Super Food: Omega-3 Fats

Omega-3 Fats are awesome, and if you are reading this in America, I can almost guarantee you don't eat enough of them.

Unless you've been living in total isolation, I'm sure you've heard a bit about Omega-3, and if you are anything like me, you filed all that information into the portion of the brain that knows it should care, doesn't want to change their diet to get on the latest band wagon, and additionally can't be bothered do the research to see if its worth a change in their diet.

So let me tell you, from one non-band-wagoner to another, go forth and ride.

Fats are used in your body for cellular construction, and building your cells out of bad fats like saturated fat and trans fats makes your cells unable perform at their optimum level. So when we eat fat we need to eat “good fats” like mono and polyunsatuarted fats. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids are essential monounsaturated fats, essential because they must be consumed through your diet, both are needed in your diet, and they can't be produced by your own body (unlike saturated fat, of which you need to consume none). Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids are found in plants and stored in the bodies of the animals which eat them, which is how they travel up the food chain. In this sense, you are what you eat and in America, we eat Omega-6 fatty acids a lot.

Omega-6 fatty acids are extremely prevalent in the Western diet because it is found in corn, and most of the products we consume, in some way shape or form contain corn. Corn is in our meat, because we feed cattle corn to cheaply fatten them up, it's in our dairy for the same reason. It's in almost all processed sweet foods in the form of High Fructose Cory Syrup; it's in our fake fat in the form of Partially Hydrogenated Oil, which is also in everything. Corn is a huge industry, and I'll talk about it at length later, but trust me when I quote Michael Pollan in saying we are "People of the Corn".

What do Omega-6 fatty acids do? When they are consumed on their own and out of balance they promote chronic diseases like inflammation, heart disease, cancer, asthma, arthritis, osteoporosis and depression. What is the best way to get these afflictions in balance? Is it aspirin, heart medication, inhalers, Aleive, bone density pills and Prozac? There is a school of thought out there who thinks there is a better answer.

OMEGA-3! From Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution "In general Omega-3 fats reduce inflammation, blood pressure, water and sodium retention and pain and also relax blood vessels. Omega-6s do just the opposite" p108. Omega-3 fats have another added benefit, they help curb your cravings for sweet foods because (aside from balancing your diet out), as Dr. Gundry goes on to suggest, when your Omega-6 is too high, depression is promoted. When Omega-3 is introduced, you don't feel the need to mitigate your depression with junk food that isn't actually going to fill you up anyway (sugar begets sugar).

So - how out of balance are you. The ideal balance for Omega-3 to Omega-6 is anything from 4:1 to 1:1 Omega-3 to Omega-6. Any guess what the typical Western diet is?

1:40

Most westerners get 40x too much Omega-6 in relation to their intake of Omega-3. I'm NOT a doctor, but it seems to me that if what I have read on the Omegas is true, it is no wonder this nation is so medicated.

So - wondering if your diet is in balance? Take a look at what you eat the most of, the animal products that you eat and specifically the food those animals eat. Is it grain? Is it corn? Is it partially hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup? Is it the classic Western diet? Then its probably Omega-6.

Do you use olive oil to saute your food, eat your greens and eat wild caught Salmon? Then its probably Omega-3. If you can, purchase Omega-3 eggs, purchase grass fed beef, eat WILD caught fish & buy yogurt from grass cows then you are really in the zone to help promote your Omega-3 intake. Yes, buying all those products in expensive, but if you like you can buy vitamin supplements which are fairly inexpensive (Trader Joe's) or eat a wide variety of your green fats.

At home I have incorporated Omega-3 into our daily lives by cutting down on corn based products, and promoting Omega-3 food, like the proper eggs, yogurt from grass fed cows, and using Olive Oil instead of butter, pam spray and salad dressing and taking 2 vitamin supplements a day.

What have you heard about Omega-3 Fats, leave a comment below and let me know!

Update:  My Mom asked me to post a list of more foods with Omega-3 Fats in them.  In general, think of Omega-3 Fats as green fats, and animals that eat green foods like grass and alge have green fats in them too.

Here is a link to the WebMd's Omega-3 Shopping list: http://www.webmd.com/diet/your-omega-3-family-shopping-list.
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Next time on Popular Excuses, Don’t Worry, my Muffin was Fat Free!
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Reading List
Dr. Gundry’s Diet Evolution
Michael Pollan “The Omnivores Dilemma”
Michael Murry “The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods”