Omega-6s Counteract Omega-3s

We need to increase our Omega-3 Fatty Acids… but, a new book says that since we are eating the WRONG kinds of fats, we won’t get the benefits of eating fish and other foods that have more Omega-3s!

How Omega-6s Usurped Omega-3s In US Diet

“Has a little-known family of polyunsaturated fatty acids called Omega-6s, which has quietly permeated the Western diet in recent decades, nullified the impact of heart disease-fighting omega-3s? According to a new book, The Queen of Fats, Americans now have so many omega-6s in our bodies that eating fish to bolster our omega-3s may not do any good. Why? Because these two families of fats compete in our body’s metabolism. Or, as Susan Allport, the author of this new landmark book about the history, science and economics of omega-3s, published by the University of California Press (September, 2006), puts it: ‘It is not the fish we are NOT eating that is our problem, but the oils we ARE eating.’ How have omega-6s saturated the Western diet so completely and quietly? Ms. Allport’s heavily researched, fact filled book says that most of our cooking oils are heavily laden with omega-6s (much used corn oil, for example, has a 46 to 1 ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s; lesser used canola oil’s ratio, however, is only 2 to 1), and that whatever omega-3s there are in oils are eliminated if those oils are hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated to extend the shelf life of foods, as occurs in most food manufacturing.”

So, watch your hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fat intake, and DO increase your good fats! It may take a while after these changes are made, but overall it will be a huge benefit!