Six Pack Abs

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Surprising source of omega-3 healthy fats

This is a post by Mike Geary from truthaboutabs.com

Everybody already knows that salmon (wild salmon, not farm raised) is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids...so that's no surprise.

And we also know the issues that come with eating fish higher on the food chain such as tuna and swordfish -- the high mercury levels!

But there is a great alternative that is much higher in omega-3 fatty acids and doesn't have the issues with mercury that tuna, swordfish, and other larger fish do... and that alternative is:

Sardines!

Now before you give the usual response I see from people -- "Ewww, sardines are nasty"... you might want to give them an honest try first and maybe try the type of sardine sandwich melt that I make, which is delicious.

Sardines are a great choice for a quick healthy meal -- tons of muscle-building appetite-satisfying protein, super high in healthy omega-3 healthy fats, and much lower in mercury and other pollutants than most fish. And they're delicious too in my "grilled sardine melt" recipe below.

Here's the healthy grilled-sardine-melt that I make sometimes:

1 container of sardines
1 whole egg cooked over-easy (cage-free organic)
2 slices of sprouted-grain Ezekial raisin bread
a little mustard
1 slice of grass-fed organic cheddar cheese
a little virgin coconut oil to brush the bread with

I just stack the cheese, sardines, and the grilled egg on the bread (with outsides brushed with coconut oil) and then grill this sandwich up just like a grilled cheese. If you have some fresh basil leaves, that goes great inside this sandwich also. Mmm, gotta love basil!

I know this sandwich probably sounds a little weird, but I've yet to find somebody that didn't think this was absolutely delicious when they tried it.

The sprouted grain raisin bread makes a nice sweet contrast to the sardines, egg, and cheese... it's really good!

This is actually quite a filling sandwich with the egg, sardines, and the cheese on it... it'll satisfy your appetite for hours. I like to have this healthy sandwich with a side salad of fresh greens and 1/4 or 1/2 of an avocado... and of course, some my unsweetened iced green/white/oolong tea mixture.

One of the benefits of sardines is also the long chain omega-3 fats, such as EPA and DHA... this is different than eating plant-based omega-3 fats for example, from flaxseeds or walnuts, where your body still needs to try to convert the shorter chain omega-3s to longer chain omega-3s. This is an inefficient conversion, so one of the best ways to provide your body with the important EPA and DHA are through fatty fish sources, fish oil, or krill oil.

That's one of the reasons I'm such a fan of taking daily Krill Oil... especially considering that Krill Oil has been measured as having 47x the antioxidant power of fish oil, plus with the benefit of the phospholipids in Krill Oil.

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