Shopping in the supplement aisle of the store can be daunting. If you want to know which fish contain omega 3, you will find many options. The real questions are what else is in them and how much you should eat.
Both omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids are a vital part of our immune system. Ideally, they should be in a one to one ratio. In the Western world, that is unlikely to happen. Omega 6 are part of vegetable oils, processed foods, salad dressings, etc. Due to this overload, the typical consumer is saturated with this vital yet readily available nutrient.
While we want to know which fish contains omega 3, we also need to know the levels of omega 6 in each species. Seafood with better proportions are salmon, tuna, hoki, mackerel, herring and rainbow trout. Shrimp and oysters are good too. Sardines and anchovies can be high in sodium.
Stay away from larger predators like sharks or swordfish. Most omega 3s come from algae at the bottom of the food chain. As you go up the chain, the fatty acid content increases, but so does the level of all ocean pollutants. Unfortunately, this also affects most of the species I mentioned above.
Another alternative is fish farms. Norway alone has 800 of them. Since the fish are far from their natural food chain, they have to rely on the pellets they are fed for nutrients, not natural algae. They may not have as many ocean toxins as mercury, but they do have to deal with viruses and parasites that spread quickly in crowded conditions.
There are two bits of information here.
1]The FDA suggests a maximum of two servings of fish per week.
2]A recent [2010] A study of 357 Yup’ik Eskimos, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that high levels of omega-3 fats from fish in the blood corresponded to extremely low cardiovascular and immune system disorders.
Eskimos may be at risk for mercury poisoning, but are very unlikely to suffer from heart attack, arthritis, or clinical depression.
Toxins versus benefits. It seems that we are between a rock and a hard place. To get close to the levels of fat that the Eskimos had, we have to eat a lot of seafood a day or get a quality supplement.
The best ones are contaminant-free and can prove it. The others just make claims. The question remains which fish contains omega 3. My supplement has plenty of it. It is derived from local catches of hoki that swim in New Zealand’s Southern Ocean, one of the least toxic areas on the planet.