Gak! I'm going to have to eat fish!

Omega 3s. The more and more I read about them, the more interesting they are, especially in terms of their interaction/competition with Omega 6s in our metabolic pathways.

Anyhoo - I will do a more detailed post on the science and the health impacts, but a concept that's crystallizing for me is the extreme importance of getting our O3:O6 dietary ratio up from 1:5,1:10 or 1:20 to a level that's closer to 1.

I searched for some empirical info on fatty acid levels and the best source I found was the excellent Danish Food Composition Database - link here. They have good information on about a thousand common foods in an easily manageable format.

I tried to plot the data; but with so many items it's not easy to do. Here's a selection:

This graphs the omega ratio from 1:15 >> 15:1, and the transparency of the bar (along with the number on the y-axis) indicate the % by mass of total omegas in 100g of the food. It's a random sample of 30 foods from the source list.

I also plotted all the "green ones" - i.e. ratio 1:1 or better. It's a longer list, and sadly means I'm going to have to start eating more fish! It was really surprising to see how few foods can actually bring your ratio towards 1:1 - so I guess it's either salmon salads (or maybe just linseed oil!). Actually thinking about it maybe I'll stick to the DHA/EPA capsules!

The full data that I derived is here in pdf form, if interested.