Omega fatty acids in food

It's vitally important for most people to start eating more foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids.

This is because the majority of people in the Western world now eat way too much omega 6 fatty acids in relation to the omega 3's they eat.

Many natural health experts postulate that the optimal ratio should be about 1:1. However, the average person in the Western world now eats at a 20:1 ratio -- 20 being the Omega 6's.

This is leading to an unmitigated health disaster for tens of thousands of people because high omega 6 consumption in relation to omega 3 is now being viewed as a major contributor to diseases, especially heart disease.

List of Foods Containing Omega 3 fatty Acids

The major problem is that it was a lot easier for our ancestors to obtain foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids.

You see, nowadays the meats we eat are mass produced for size, not nutrition. They are fattened as fast as possible because the more cattle and chickens and lamb (and so on) that the meat industry can raise in the shortest possible time, the more profits they stand to make.

One of the easiest ways to fatten livestock quickly is to feed the animals grain.

But, in nature, free range cattle, chicken, and the like, eat grass. Grain is very unnatural to their diet.

When they ate grass, the meats they produce (and our ancestors ate) were foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids.

So, to start, if you want a list of foods containing omega 3 fatty acids, you can search out local specialty grocers that carry grassfed meats. These are going to be much more pricy than typical store bought meat, but they are worth it when it comes to good health.

If you live next to local farmer markets, they will often sell these grassfed meats too.

Omega Fatty Acids in Food

Good plant sources for omega 3's include the likes of: flaxseed, chia, purslane, lingonberry, and hemp.

Perhaps the best food source of all for omega 3 fatty acids is fish. Not all fishes are equal, of course, but generally speaking fish is a fantastic source to get omega 3's, with a few caveats.

First, unfortunately, much of the fish nowadays is polluted due to industrial waste in the Oceans and harbors toxins like mercury and PCB's that have accumulated in the flesh.

Second, if you buy farm raised fish you'll be missing out on omega 3 benefits. You see, farm raised fish are fed pellets that do not contain the fish's natural diet (such as algae), which means these fish no longer are foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids.

If you want to get the omega 3 benefits of fish, you should use fish oil supplements instead. The best ones undergo a process called molecular distillation that removes all impurities.

What you are left with is the rich omega 3 fatty acids without the toxins that you would get by eating fish.