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Omega 3 Supplements

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You probably know that your body needs essential fatty acids found in foods like fish oils but do you know what they are and in what ratios you should get them?

The Omega 3, Omega 6 and Omega 9 fatty acids, or essential fatty acids are critical to your good health and the Omega 3 and 6 cannot be produced by the body and need to be obtained from the foods we eat or supplementation. (The Omega 9 can be produced by the body so we won’t worry about that in this article).

These fatty acids have a key role in preventing many diseases. They can help reduce risk of cardiovascular problems as well as give you more energy and help prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and depression. They’ve even been shown to help treat rheumatoid arthritis, Raynaud's disease and diabetes along with many other diseases.

But there’s a big problem with the amounts we are getting in our modern day diets!

Our ancient ancestors ate a much different diet then we do. Today we have a lot of processed and packaged foods which changes the amounts of nutrients we get - including the fatty acids. You see, if the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acids is “off” then that can cause big health problems … And our ratios today are waaaayyy off! The optimum ratio is about 1:1 which is pretty much what early man got in his diet. Today, however, the typical diet of the modernized world has a ratio of about 20:1 (that’s 20 times more Omega 6’s then we should be eating).

This imbalance of fatty acids is thought to be the cause of some of our most serious health issues and even mainstream medicine is advocating the use of Omega 3 supplements to bring our levels back into balance.

What Can You Do?

One thing you want to do is try to eat less of the foods that have Omega 6 fatty acids in them. A lot of these foods are not good for you in general anyway! Omega 6 is found mostly in the following foods:
Sunflower oil
Corn oil
Soy
Canola oil
Safflower oil

You probably use these in your own kitchen for cooking, right? Not only that but if you check the ingredients list of most of your packaged foods, you’ll find these oils used in their production as well. So, you might want to consider using a different oil - coconut oil is great as is extra virgin olive oil and even organic butter - all of these choices will be much better for your health.

The other thing you can do is eat more foods that have Omega 3 fatty acids in them. These include:
Walnut oil
Flaxseed oil
Fish

Also, consider eating grass fed beef as this will have a higher Omega 3 to 6 ratio than grain fed beef.

Of course we all know that fish have lots of Omega 3’s in them, but the problem there is that, since we have polluted most of the waters on our planet, the fish have toxic levels of mercury so the risk of ingesting too much mercury might outweigh the benefits of getting more Omega 3! The safest fish to eat are sardines, tilapia, flounder, haddock and wild Pacific salmon.

Which brings me to why Omega 3 supplements might be critical to your health!

There’s simply not a better way to raise the ratio between the Omega 3 and 6’s in your diet. Cod liver oil is a great way to get more Omega 3’s but it also has a lot of vitamin D so if you get a lot of sun you probably want to avoid taking cod liver oil as you may end up with too much vitamin D (getting more than 15 minutes of strong sun per day will allow your body to produce as much vitamin D as it needs). On the other hand, if you avoid the sun or live in a cold climate, cod liver oil might allow you to kill 2 bird with one stone! Take 1 teaspoon for every 40 pounds of body weight.

Krill oil is another good supplement to take that has a lot of Omega 3 and no Vitamin D so it is a great choice if you don’t need extra vitamin D.

When taking Omega 3 supplements, you want to be sure to also take 400 units of Vitamin E to help protect to fat from oxidation and you might want to throw some extra Vitamin K in for good measure ( you can get that from leafy greens). You don’t need to worry about supplementing your Omega 6 or 9 intake as you get plenty of that from your regular diet.

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Country Life Omega-3 200 softgels - $ 19.95
Retail Price: 26.60
You Save: $6.65
From: Affordable Supplements