Showing posts with label omega. Show all posts
Showing posts with label omega. Show all posts

Sunday, November 10, 2013

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.