The honest self-care

Stepmother Fiona from the movie A Cinderella Story was not entirely wrong – salmon with unsaturated fatty acids is actually very healthy.

But you have to catch it yourself, otherwise it can actually be quite harmful.

Why omega-3 and omega- 6 fatty acids are important for the body

We need omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids to keep our cholesterol levels and therefore our blood pressure low. This prevents modern cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes (which by the way kill one in four people worldwide!!).

Here in this article I have explained in more detail what omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids actually are.

Additionally omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are essential for the structure of our nervous system. Without these fatty acids, our neurons stop working properly.

The consequence of a malnutrition would be that our brain stops working and thinking becomes really hard. It also increases the risk of developing dementia in old age.

Therefore it is recommended to eat food rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids every day.

What food should you eat ?

The best foods that provide us with plenty of omega-3 and omega-6 are seeds, nuts and saltwater fish.

Nuts

Walnuts in fact have one of the highest levels of unsaturated fatty acids. They are cultivated worldwide (i.e. they don’t need to be transported over long distances) and hardly any pesticides are used, which is of course good for the environment and good for us.

Fish is a different story.

Why you shouldn’t eat fish from the sea

The best reason is because there is a much better alternative.

(I will only list facts that ecologists, biologists and environmentalists have been preaching for years. )

The oceans are overfished worldwide since humans have taken far too many fish from the sea.

If you don’t care about that right now, please think about the many whales, dolphins, polar bears and penguins that are hungry because of us.

And here is a cute picture – because people only care about animals if they are cute…

Remember, it’s not just the fish we want to eat that end up in the net, but there are large quantities of by-catch. Around 300,000 dolphins and whales die for nothing every year.

Why fish farms are not better and actually are bad for your health

It actually sounds pretty good: to prevent further overfishing of the oceans (and because there is simply not enough fish in the sea anymore), we breed our own fish in seperated coastal areas, so-called aquacultures.

In these breeding tanks and net pens, mainly salmon, sea bream and sea bass are bred.

As far too many fish live in a confined space, the fish cannot find their food in the water, but must be fed by humans.

The plant-based food has to be transported over long distances and therefore must to be preserved.

Pesticides are used for this purpose. The fish take up the pesticides with their food and because the pesticides (e.g. ethoxyquin) are fat-soluble, they are stored in the fatty tissue of the fish.

When the fish finally end up on our plates after years of farming, we are poisoning ourselves.

Now you may wonder if this information can really be correct, because all other foods are tested for their ingredients and it cannot be that we buy contaminated food in the supermarket.

Unfortunately, it is, because only the quantities of pesticides (mainly ethoxyquin) used for the fish food are legally controlled, but not the quantities that are finally in the fish.

Unfortunately, ethoxyquin has a harmful effect on the genetic material of mammals and therefore also on humans, meaning it is causing cancer in the long term.

The good news is that the EU has now banned the use of ethoxyquin.
It is still used in the USA, Canada and Australia though.

Why you should eat algae or algae-based products instead of fish

Saltwater fish do have such high omega-3 and omega-6 levels because their diet consists of algae, which produce these fatty acids themselves.

So instead of eating fish, you can eat the algae straight away. Here in Germany, however, I have yet to meet anyone who would like to eat algae.

I would therefore recommend capsules that contain these fatty acids.

Omega-3 capsules are a really great algae-based food supplement.

Beware, many such supplements (especially the cheap products) are made from fish oil from waste and unknown sources, so be careful here as they are most likely to be enriched with pesticides.