Perhaps you’re already aware of the health benefits of essential fatty acids, and in particular Omega 3 fatty acids. There’s been plenty of news lately about these health benefits and many people now understand about the importance of maintaining an adequate intake of Omega3 fats, in which most of us are deficient. But have you heard about Omega 6 fats, and do you know what the Omega 3 Omega 6 ratio is?
We all need good fats known as essential fatty acids for good health. Our body cannot manufacture these itself and so relies on getting them through our diet every day. Omega 3 fats are found in fish, and the vast majority of us are deficient in Omega 3 intake.
However Omega 6 fatty acids are generally found in a range of plant-based food sources that we are not deficient in in our diet. You find Omega 6 fats in sunflower oil, sesame oil, peanut oil, corn oil and more, and soy oil is almost totally comprised of Omega 6 fatty acids.
Generally these vegetable oils are extremely cheap. Because they are cheap they are used in almost all processed foods requiring oil, including margarine. Most of us eat a diet high in processed foods and cook with vegetable oils and as a result our diets are too high in Omega 6.
Scientific research has shown that in the past we had an Omega 3 Omega 6 ratio of roughly 1 to 1, or in other words we ate roughly the same amount of each of these fats in our diet. However estimates now are that the Omega3 Omega 6 ratio in the average US citizen is somewhere from 10 to 1, or even, according to some estimates up to 30 to 1. Because of our reliance on vegetable oils and processed foods we are now eating far more Omega 6 fats than we ever did in the past.
It is true that Omega 6 fats are important to our health however it is also true that the Omega3 Omega 6 ratio, or the ratio between how much of each of the 2 types of fats that we eat, is also very important, and that by eating too much Omega 6, whilst at the same time eating too little Omega 3, we are running the risk of a range of health problems including the possibility of a range of cancers as well as coronary artery disease and inflammatory diseases like arthritis.
Combine this with the fact that in the past most of our meat came from animals which were grass fed, and which therefore had a reasonable level of Omega3 fats, but most of our animals are now grain fed which reduces the levels of omega3 fats and increases the level of Omega 6 and you can see that there is no need at all for supplementation with 6.
So whilst it is important to get enough Omega3 fats in our diet is also vitally important to reduce our reliance on foods high in Omega 6 fats. This produces a much more healthy omega 3 Omega 6 ratio. For all these reasons we need to reduce our reliance on foods high in Omega 6. We can do this by changing our diet to a lower intake of processed foods and by changing our cooking oils from vegetable oils to healthy oils such as olive oil. And equally important is to increase our intake of Omega 3 and the single best way to do this is to take daily fish oil supplements.
However, although all of us should be taking daily fish oil supplements, you need to be aware that there are wide variations in the amount of the Omega 3 fatty acids found in the different brands of fish oil supplements, and you need to know how to make an informed choice when choosing your fish oil supplements.
Find out how to make this comparison between the different fish oil supplement brands on my website.
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