With so many options for your omega 3 fish oil supplement, it's very normal for you to get so overwhelmed.
However, if you don't know how to choose the best fish oil supplement, you may just end up buying a product that doesn't do anything good for your body. Worse, you could experience serious side effects.
The next time you're out scouring for fish oil, bring this checklist with you.
Purity
Make sure that it's 100 percent pure fish oil. Fish live in the water, and water can get polluted with several toxins--you get the drift? Whatever the fish consumes, you consume.
If it ingests mercury, you could also introduce this toxin into your body. One doesn't have to be a scientist to know the dangers of mercury.
Pharmaceutical-grade fish oil is the safest, since it molecularly distilled in order to to get rid of the toxins that plague many fish oil products.
The Origin
Some manufacturers get their fish oil from the hoki fish, which lives in the much-deeper portions of the water. The environment there is a lot cleaner, and so there's a lesser chance that the fish have digested any toxic chemical.
Therefore, you should know where the fish oil comes from. Farm raised fish are fed on the cheapest feed and therefore have low omega 3 fatty acids. Not good.
What is worst, farm raised fish contains high amounts of contaminants like mercury and poly Biphenyl - things you don't want in your omega3 supplement.
The Label
You also want to look at the label before you purchase your supplement. Many of the drug store variety omega 3 supplements contain fillers so that they can save a few pennies at your expense.
Acceptable additives to omega 3 supplements are vitamin E to help preserve the integrity of the supplement, gelatin and glycerin for the capsule itself.
Is It Cod
Cod liver oil may potentially be healthy but it contains many contaminants like Polychlorinated biphenyls, hexachlorobenzene, hexachlorocyclohexane isomers, and pesticide organochlorine residues.Many of these contaminants are carcinogenic.
Cod also has a history of upsetting stomachs and bad taste.
New Kids On The Block
Krill, chia, salba are all riding the omega 3 bandwagon wave. Not only are they not as potent as fish oil but they do not have the huge volume of studies supporting their health benefits as does fish oil.
Bottom line, stick to what the science has been saying for decades. There is no better supplement than pure omega 3 fish oil.
