For a couple of years now I have been a daily consumer of various omega fatty acid supplements; not just the usual omega-3, which usually comes in the form of fish oil, but omega-6 and omega-9 as well, which come from flaxseed oil and borage oil. The whole range of the omega fatty acids have a variety of health benefits, though most people are probably just aware of the omega-3 effects on cardiac health. I originally started taking the fish oil for that purpose, but someone recommended adding the flax and borage, and I do believe that the combination of the three has been beneficial for me overall — a couple of chronic problems I’d had for years simply went away after taking the fish-flax-borage combo for a while.
However, I have to admit to being completely ignorant of the issues regarding the production of fish oil products. This NYT article from December is a guest op-ed from Paul Greenberg, a writer who has a book coming out later this year about fish and the fishing industries. in the article, he explains that most fish oil comes from a species of fish called menhaden (also known as the alewife). Menhaden are a critical link in the Atlantic ecosystem, because they the link in the food chain between plankton and large fish: the menhaden eat plankton, but practically every other fish in the sea eats menhaden. While menhaden have always been useful in industrial fisheries as the source of fish meal, it has been the boom in consumption of fish oil that has resulted in dangerous overfishing of the species. Greenberg points out that one company is responsible for 90% of the menhaden catch in the U.S., and their overfishing has resulted in their operations being banned up and down the East Coast except in two states. While the menhaden population is believed to be large and stable and not in immediate peril, Greenberg correctly argues that the time to lock in some protections against widespread overfishing is NOW, before the loss of an adequate supply of the fish causes problems not just for humans but for the entire ecosystem of the Atlantic ocean.
This TIME.com article picks up on the concerns Greenberg expresses but also mentions a possible alternative to menhaden-based fish oil supplements: algae oil. All that omega-3 fatty acid in the menhaden comes from the algae that they eat, and apparently it’s possible to get the omega-3 directly from processing the algae without involving the fish at all. And algae can be grown in processing vats rather than relying on harvesting from the sea. It’s possible to buy algae oil supplements now: this particular product came up with just a little Googling, and it looks like you might want to use “vegan” as a search term. The next time I run out of fish oil capsules, I think I will be giving it a try myself.
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