Wild salmon vs. kids vitamins

[henny penny]

If I can get ds to eat an ounce of wild salmon every day or so, can we skip the clo and fish oil gummys? He loves salmon and the formulated vitamins are so expensive....... By my calculations, less than one ounce of salmon would provide more epa and dha than the gummys we've used.
Thoughts please?

[Sileree]

Originally Posted by henny penny

If I can get ds to eat an ounce of wild salmon every day or so, can we skip the clo and fish oil gummys? He loves salmon and the formulated vitamins are so expensive....... By my calculations, less than one ounce of salmon would provide more epa and dha than the gummys we've used.

Thoughts please?

If all you want to give him are omega-3's then by all means give him salmon. I am sure the nutrients from food will be better absorbed. I don't know if one ounce has enough vitamin's A and D, however.

[houseofblues]

Actually, I think salmon has a lot of vitamin D. I have a friend that sells canned salmon and her website www.purealaskasalmon.com says that the canned sockeye salmon has 795 IU of vitamin D per serving (a glass of milk has 115-124) and 277mg of calcium and some vitamin E as well. I don't think it has any vitamin A, but it's pretty damn healthy. So I'd say wild salmon is a pretty fair substitute for the supplements.

[elisheva]

I wonder how much salmon you'd have to eat though. For First Nations in the Pacific Northwest, salmon was a staple AFAIK and was eaten at every meal in season. I entertained thoughts of eating coldwater fish to get our Vit D, but I'm just not willing to eat as much as I think we'd have to.

[henny penny]

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm mostly interested in providing omega fats with the salmon. Of course, brands vary, but by my quick calculations both a half teaspoon of clo and one ounce of salmon each provide roughly 500mg combined epa/dha. How much does a three year old need daily?
I'm thinking of smoking my own salmon candy which I'm sure will be eagerly eaten daily in whatever amount needed!

[Sileree]

I don't know that there is a universal recommendation right now for how much omega-3 fatty acids are needed every day. I have heard 2-4% of calories, but that is probably a recommendation for those eating the SAD diet.

This is for adults, but I would imagine tissue saturation and optimal omega 3/6 balance would apply to children as well.

"The amount of n-3 needed to attain 60% tissue concentration is dependent upon the amount of n-6 in the diet. In the Phillipines, where n-6 intake is less than 1% of total calories, only 278mg/d of EPA & DHA (0.125% of calories) is needed to achieve 60% tissue concentration. In the U.S., where n-6 intake is 9% of total calories, a whopping 3.67g/d of EPA & DHA would be needed to achieve 60% tissue concentration."

This site talks about how eating salmon or tuna just twice a week helps raise omega-3 levels as effectively as daily fish oil supplements.