Which Fish to Eat

Raena Morgan: We’re talking with Dr. Jorn Dyerberg about omega 3s. Dr. Dyerberg, do we eat enough fish, in general, to benefit from it, or should we be supplements, I guess is the question. Dr. Jorn Dyerberg: By ‘we’, you mean Americans? Raena Morgan: West—American’s, Westerners. Dr. Jorn Dyerberg: Western society. My simple answer—do we eat enough—will be no, we don’t. Raena Morgan: No? Dr. Jorn Dyerberg: We don’t, we don’t. Raena Morgan: What kind of fish should we eat? Dr. Jorn Dyerberg: We should eat fatty fish. Fish store their fats differently. Let’s take a cod. Raena Morgan: Alright. Dr. Jorn Dyerberg: Cod store the fat in the liver and we normally do not eat the liver because we don’t like it, or it’s not sold, or it’s pressed for cod liver oil and those people don’t take cod liver oil. But the cod will not deposit its fats in muscle. The cod is a lean fish. But other fishes deposit their fats in the muscles. And the good example is a salmon, the mackerel, the herring, the eel. And the fat content in some of these, for example in the mackerel, can be rather high—12, 15 percentage of the weight. So how much should we eat of that? We have been speculating on that in advisory terms for quite a long time and the American Heart Association has come up with advice that suits with the studies that have demonstrated that this fits in with the studies that this amount is associated to a lower risk or coronaries and that it 2 to 3 servings of fatty fish per week, 2 to 3 servings per week. If you don’t do that—if, of course, you don’t like it, or because you live in areas in the midst of America where the supply of coastal fish is low—then, if you want to have omega 3s, you have to go for supplements. And as I mentioned in one of the previous discussions we had, food is—instead of another food, so it’s not a weight issue—but if you supplement, you add a little more fat—one or two grams—and then you have to cut down on other fats. As I said, drop another cookie and you’re well done with that. So, my general thing is you don’t eat enough—especially here in America—but 2 or 3 servings of fatty fish per week will, regarding risk of coronary, bring you in a lower risk group. I must stress, as a nutritionist, it’s a nutritional issue and my advice is to increase the amount of fatty fish consumption. And only if you don’t do that, you can consider supplementation. Raena Morgan: Okay, well, thank you, Dr. Dyerberg. Dr. Jorn Dyerberg: Thank you.