From a Smart Publications e-newsletter by John Morgenthaler
After reading this newsletter, you'll understand how important fish oil is to your health and it is just as important to understand the serious quality issues involved in manufacturing, and choosing a safe and pure fish oil supplement.
High quality pharmaceutical grade products are tested for heavy metals, pesticides, including PCBs, DDT, dioxins, and peroxides. But that's only part of the story. Even the purest fish oil can produce harmful by-products due to bad processing. Not adding the proper antioxidants like rosemary extract, ascorbyl palmitate, and natural tocopherols at the right moment will lead to an unstable product that produces peroxides and turns rancid. The problem is that most manufacturers don't check peroxide levels and these result in free radicals that harm your health. Also, using the wrong equipment can lead to heavy metal contamination that will also damage product stability.
Does all this really matter? YES! It makes a difference in your health! Fish oil that contains contaminants, the wrong ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 acids, and/or peroxides will harm your health instead of protecting it!
When you shop for a fish oil, make sure you look for a product that has:
High levels of EPA and DHA per capsule
Low peroxide levels
Low level contaminants such as lead, mercury, pesticides, PCB's and dioxins
Antioxidants such as rosemary extract, ascorbyl palmitate, and natural tocopherols
Check the expiration date on the bottle, and cut open a capsule and taste the oil. If it tastes and smells like fish that's gone bad, don’t eat it! It is rancid oil. Even good oils will be fishy and oily but will not have that sharp, bitter, fishy smell of rancid fish oil. It is possible, however, to find a superb pharmaceutical-grade product that is SO GOOD, you can chew it down and won't mind the taste!
Further reading
3 comments:
Some great recommendations in this article. Choosing a good, pharmaceutical-grade fish oil will go a long way to reducing your exposure to mercury, PCB's, dioxins and other contaminants. You can also try using fish oils that have been tested by third-party laboratories to ensure their purity. For example, in North America, we have fish oils that have been tested by the International Fish oil Standards (IFOS) to ensure they are pure and contain minimal contaminants. Here's more information on IFOS fish oils should you wish to learn more about them.
nice post Charlotte, I've been looking for some new fish tablets.
Which do you use?
train hard :)
Hi Katie,
I mostly use either Biotest's Flame Out, Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega (liquid or capsules), or Bioceuticals Ultra Clean capsules.
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