Talk about health

I don't know if you agree, but I've found getting back into work more difficult this year than ever before. Yes, well, maybe it's just me. Anyway, here's a thought to start the year (again)...

Does adding omega-3 to foods make them healthy or better for you?

This thought occurred to me as I searched the isles of my local supermarket recently and noticed that a lot of processed foods seem to have added vitamins, minerals and now essential fatty acids. The omega-3 thing is probably the one that is trumpeted more than some of the others right now. Hence my question.

There is omega -3 in yoghurts, cereals, fruit juices, dairy foods and others, all added, I presume, with the intention of making them appear healthy. But does it? From what I have read about fortifying food with vitamins that aren't normally in them, it seems that you don't get the benefit you might expect.

As a theoretical rule, you would suppose that having vitamins etc from any source is going to help you healthy. Not so. Ideally, get your nutrition from the freshest form of natural food that contains the nutrient - fresh natural fruits and vegetables, lean meats, oily fish all in season and sourced as locally as possible.

But, just adding random, fashionable health ingredients to hightly processed foods that otherwise are filled with sugars, transfats and so on but have little or no fibre doesn't transform them from unhealthy to healthy.

Omega-3 are very important nutrients that are sadly lacking from many diets these days. They are necessary factors in good health and most of us would benefit from taking more of them in our diets. So, the principle is right - get more omega-3 in your life.

However, you have to keep a balance. Your body is not designed to extract omega-3 from processed foods. Your digestive system expects to handle omega-3 along with the fish or nuts it appears naturally with. You can work with omega-3 in fish oil, krill oil and nut oils, but just adding it to some unrelated product is likely to cause problems.

My thoughts? I would rather work with nature to get my nutrients instead of fighting it. Don't expect your complex body to be able to deal easily with something else. Adding nutrients to an otherwise unhealthy food won't make it healthy. A few vitamins or essential fatty acids in a sugar-filled cereal or transfatty spread dosn't change its basic nature.

Don't be misled by adverts. Read the labels. Eat healthily most of the time - including omega-3 and vitamins. And limit the amount of processed food you eat.

There's a lot more to food than you think. Check it out at http://www.healthexplored.co.uk , sign up for my FREE newsletter and look at some of the articles available there.

Wishing you the best of health.

Labels: Fortifying processed foods