The Best Brand Of Fish Oil To Take – 5 Points To Keep In Mind Before Making Your Buying Decision!
There are literally hundreds of companies on the market claiming they have the best brand of fish oil to take daily. Here are 5 important points to keep in mind to help you separate the wheat from the chaff.
1. Where they catch the fish.
2. How clean is the water.
3. How pure is the fish.
4. How do they purify the fish?
5. How much essential fatty acids are in the oil.
The purpose of this article is to look into these 5 points in more detail.
Where the fish is caught is very important because most oceans are polluted to varying degrees. Naturally if you can source fish from the least polluted seas very little or in some cases no distillation is necessary to purify the oil. The unfortunate fact is most cold-water locations where the best fish for extracting omega 3 fatty acids from fall into the polluted category.
That said, arguably the safest cleanest waters are in the Arctic Circle and Southern ocean off Australia and New Zealand. These two countries have smaller landmass in relation to the size of the surrounding sea area. The smaller populations help the local environment cope better, so it’s less polluted compared to larger land masses and populations with big cities like in Europe, Africa and the Americas.
Fish caught in waters containing dioxins, heavy metals and PCBs will become contaminated as they eat the algae, smaller crustaceans and fish species. This is particularly so in larger older fish that has consumed a lot of smaller fish over a long time that was also contaminated. Larger fish increase their oil content by approximately 20% from consuming smaller varieties.
Predatory big fish like mackerel, tuna and shark are more likely to have higher levels of contaminants because of the large amount of smaller fish they eat over their lifetime, these varieties travel long distances through potentially higher polluted ocean waters. Most reputable fish oil producers will choose to treat these larger more toxic fish with a distillation method to remove their toxins.
There are a few different methods used to purify fish oil, naturally enough some methods are better than others. The method regarded to be arguably the best for purifying fish oil is molecular distillation; the top manufacturers of fish oil on the market commonly use this technique. Some critics of molecular distillation suggest the method oxidizes the oil and should not be used, however this is not the case provided the process is done properly.
The final point to think about is the amount of essential omega 3 DHA, EPA and DPA fatty acids in the oil. These acids are what benefits your brain and body, they should make up at least 50% of the capsule contents, with the remaining amount being the fish oil itself.
Manufacturers of the best brand of fish oil to take will therefore select only the best fish species from the cleanest oceans on earth. They will purify the fish using the molecular distillation process if required to remove any toxins to ensure their finished product is the safest and purest available. They will balance the DHA and EPA essential omega 3 fatty acid percentages to ensure the end user has the best, most beneficial and correct dosage possible.