It seems this week there's a lot of people I know talking about fish. Just yesterday Marsha posted a link on the Green Mountain at Fox Run facebook page to some information about the best fish for human health and the health of our oceans. We had a discussion yesterday on genetically modified salmon and how we feel about that potentially ending up in the food supply soon. A discussion about contamination of fish went down yesterday in our nutrition class: Redefining Healthy Eating and oddly enough, I know Lisa will be blogging about mackerel tomorrow.
Eating fish has so many health benefits, but often people are not 100% about sure how much fish we should be eating. Consuming fish helps us get 2 very important omega-3 fatty acids, EPA & DHA. Another form that is also important is ALA, found in plant-based foods such as flax seed, pumpkin seeds, hemp seed, purslane, and canola oil, just to name a few.
The American Heart Association recommends an intake of .3 to .5 grams of EPA & DHA (combined) for healthy adults (recommendations increase for disease management). They also recommend .8 to 1.1 grams of ALA/day. Memorizing these numbers will do us no good if we can't translate that into food quantities.
For fish eaters, 1 oz of fish per day (or two 3.5 oz servings/week), would help us reach this goal of .3 to .5 grams of EPA and DHA. For a good source of ALA, I prefer flax seed, due to it's ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. Eating only a half-tablespoon of ground flax seed/day would help someone reach that goal of .8 to 1.1 grams of ALA.
The tough part is getting enough EPA & DHA if you do not eat fish. ALA can be converted to EPA & DHA, but the conversion ratio is pretty low. For non-fish eaters a place to start would be trying to work in 3 tablespoons of ground flax seed per day. It's also important to reduce dietary intake of omega-6 fatty acids. High levels of omega-6 interfere with this conversion process.
Do you eat fish and/or any plant sources of omega-3 fatty acids? If so, what ways do you prepare these foods to make sure you eat them often enough?
