Can Omega-3 Fortified Foods Boost Your Health?
The benefits omega-3 have been linked to the prevention of heart disease, cancer, depression, Alzheimer's, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, ulcerative colitis, Reynaud's disease and many other afflictions.
With so many benefits, marketers are seeing the benefits also -- the benefit of selling products fortified with omega-3. The question is...is it possible to get the same health benefits from consuming fortified products rather than whole foods or supplements?
Omega-3 fortified foods
Today's busy society involves grabbing quick, fast-food meals on the go; it is often difficult to eat a diet that contains the nutrients that are best for optimum health. Because omega-3 offers so many health benefits, many people concentrate on improving their intake of this essential fatty acid.
Although easily accomplished by eating more seafood, certain nuts and seeds, in our fast-paced world, we often forget or don't have time to keep track of how much omega-3 we are getting. This is where major corporations come into the picture with omega-fortified foods.
You can now find foods fortified with omega-3 in everything from eggs and english muffins to milk, pasta and oil and the list continues to grow. As with all things, there are good points and bad points to this.
The daily-recommended dose of omega-3 is 1000 mg. Fortified foods only contain a fraction of this amount. One serving of omega-3 fortified bread gives you around 120 mg of good fats. This is better than nothing, but obviously falls short of the daily amount you need to receive the health benefits of omega-3. In comparison, a serving of oily fish will give you 3000 mg of fatty acids.
However, a fresh serving of salmon can have 50 times more omega-3 than some of the fortified products on the market. This is dramatically more than the fortified bread.
While it is possible to get a small amount of omega-3 from fortified foods, you can see that you would have to consume a great deal of food to get the recommended amount. Take into consideration that fortified foods can cost up to twice as much as products without it and could get expensive.
If you're serious about improving your health by consuming more omega-3, your best bet is to eat a diet that includes foods high in this fatty acid or to take quality omega-3 supplements.
