The health benefits of Omega 3 essential fatty acids are well known. They reduce the risk of heart disease and help with inflammation. There are various ways of getting Omega 3 acid into your diet.

Eating oily fish is one way of including omega 3 acids in your diet. The best sources are mackerel, Salmon and herring. Bear in mind that the fish need to be wild as the farmed salmon contains very little omega 3 acid. The downside of eating wild fish is that it can be contaminated with mercury. For this reason, eating fish that are nearer the bottom of the food chain—such as sardines—carry a lower risk of contamination. This is because the bigger fish eat the smaller fish so the contaminants won’t have built up over time in the smaller fish.

Another way of getting omega 3 acids is to eat flaxseed oil. This can be done by buying flaxseeds and grinding them up as you need them in a coffee grinder and then adding it to salads or smoothies. The problem with flaxseed oil is that it doesn’t directly provide the two most important omega 3 acids—EPA and DHA—but contains their parent fatty acid which is ALA. ALA has to be then in-turn converted by the body to the fatty acids EPA and DHA. The conversion rate varies from person to person but for this reason taking flaxseed oil for the purpose of getting omega 3 acid is not the best option.

The third and maybe the best option is to take a fish oil supplement. This can be in the form of capsules or liquid. The most important thing here is to ensure you get a good quality brand. Omega 3 is very vulnerable to oxidisation and for this reason it needs to be kept away from direct sunlight and oxygen. This is why the bottles that contain it are tinted, so that sunlight cannot damage the oil. For this reason capsules might be a better option as they don’t let oxygen get to the oil, which would also oxidise it.