DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Although it’s true that I tend to be more susceptible to the promises of miracle foods than most people, it’s also true that my diet is a lot healthier than, at least, the typical American’s. Of course, I’ll probably die young when I choke on a soy nut.

Fish oil is the latest miracle-food I’ve added to my diet. I was convinced to try it by an article at Mercola.com, which said in part:

Americans consume a dangerously insufficient amount of Omega-3, a fat essential to good health but only found in fish oil and a few other foods. Meanwhile, our intake of Omega-6, another fat found in corn, soy, sunflower and other oils, is far too high. The ideal ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 should be 1:1, but the typical American’s ratio ranges from 20:1 to 50:1!

I picked up a small bottle of Carlson’s Finest Fish Oil (“Great Lemon Flavor!”) without giving a lot of thought to how I’d actually consume the stuff. The idea of tossing back a spoonful of oil makes me queasy. That this particular oil results from dumping a boatful of whole fish into a press doesn’t help matters, although I would have a hard time shooting imported Greek Kalamata oil, too. I’ll put oil on bread, vegetables, soup, just about anything, but drinking it straight is something I’m no more likely to enjoy than eating a tablespoon of Vaseline.

The bottle in the refrigerator mocked me. “I’m healthy,” it whispered. “And I have a great lemon flavor!”

So at lunch one day I toasted up some of my favorite bread and drenched it with the prescribed amount of fish oil. The result was vile. Images of that enormous fish-press haunted me. The air was thick with the aroma of slightly-off lemons. Warmed by the bread, the fish oil coated my mouth, my throat, my soul. Something spun, either the room or my stomach, and possibly both. Urgh.

It took weeks to work up the courage to try the oil again. I decided to do exactly the thing I couldn’t imagine: drink it straight. The less time it spent in my mouth, the better.

To my happy surprise, it went down easily. And stayed down. I was so pleased with myself, I had seconds. My whole family has now made this an evening ritual.

In retrospect, letting the oil heat up that first time was a bad idea. The colder it is, the less, erm, “flavorful” it is. Heed my advice: drink it cold, and swallow it fast.

If you’re thinking about buying some fish oil, the most important question you should be asking right now is What about mercury? The answer is, Carlson’s claims its Finest Fish Oil contains no detectable amount of mercury, and Environmental Defense’s mercury survey ranked it as a “best choice.”

To date I’ve been buying fish oil at iHerb.com, but I just realized that Amazon’s price is $6 lower for the 500ml bottle. (The Mercola site sells it too, but the prices are very high.)

See also Dr. Mercola’s Fish Oil FAQ.