Canned Tuna in Water vs Oil: Is There a Nutritional Difference?

The first big I'm-clever moment was of course that tuna in water is just lower in calories, like the article says. So going by raw CICO logic, one tends to think, "ah naturally that will help me out. Why would I want the oil kind?"

But then you can end up neglecting other models that affect your condition, like macros. If you end up going without the oily foods, your skin might end up feeling incredibly dry and itchy, for example.

Another thing that I liked about the oil-based tuna is that if you wanted some bulk food to eat, you could add it to some salad veggies and the oil could be your salad dressing. This worked wayyyy better than water...! :-) Most commercial salad dressing is really some kind of oil-party anyway. A bit of salt and pepper and some other herbs and you were g2g.

(What a weird journey that was...during the time when I was loving the huge salads, I also had no idea I was about to find myself in the ER with 10/10 pain due to oxalates from all the spinach...)

"My diet consists of nuts, dried fruit, protein powder, nutrition bars, a variety of soups, stews, pasta, peanut butter, Nutella and so on. I have a huge variety as well as 64,000 extra calories in the form of two gallons of olive oil to add to my food." --Matt Kent, of the 42" yacht _Undaunted_

I usually eat canned pink salmon in water. It’s a bit more expensive but tastes better and has better macros. Canned tuna (at least where I’m from) is nearly pure protein (something like 0.5g fat per 14g protein): protein is great but you absolutely need some fat in your diet. Meanwhile canned pink salmon is 2g fat per 22g protein, which…is still a lot of protein, but it actually tastes like something. Canned red salmon has even more fat, but it’s more expensive and i eat a lot so i stick with pink.

I’ve also heard that salmon has more omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids than tuna. And it has a lot less mercury.