I think it's easy to take algal-based omega-3 supplements. They've gotten pretty good in the last couple years with gummies with a high dose and no algae test. And no fish killed!
Nevertheless, it remains at least 3 times more expensive than a fish oil, e.g. cod liver oil (I mean price per content of omega-3 fatty acids, not per volume; when not diluted to fool the customers, "algal" oil has a double concentration in comparison with fish oil, i.e. 5 mL of "algal" oil are equivalent with 10 mL of fish oil).
Taking daily a decent dose of "algal" oil can be more expensive than the daily protein intake required by a human, if that is taken from cheap sources (e.g. legumes and chicken meat). Allocating a major part of the budget for food to a supplement taken in minute quantities seems excessive.
I am not aware of any serious reason for the high cost of "algal" oil. A decade ago, it was much more expensive, e.g. 8 times or more in comparison with cod liver oil. Then the price has dropped to 3 times, and then it has diminished no more, remaining at 3 times for 5 years or more.
I believe that it should be possible to further reduce the cost of "algal" oil to make it an acceptable substitute for fish oil, but it seems that the producers are content with their niche market of rich vegans and they do not make any effort to reduce the cost in order to enlarge their market.
I have taken occasionally "algal" oil, to test it, but as long as it remains a luxury food I cannot use it to replace the cod liver oil that I am taking regularly, despite desiring to do so.
This is much better than nothing, but it is far from a daily intake comparable to that of the populations who live in places with access to cheap sea fish, where such fish are a significant fraction of their food (e.g. Japan).
If your target is to match the diet of such populations, that means e.g. 5 mL per day of non-diluted "algal" oil, i.e. a teaspoon of such oil (or 10 mL of fish oil), which contains around 2 grams of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.
That would be much more expensive when using "algal" oil, at least judging after the prices seen e.g. on Amazon.
In order to not scare the customers, many sources of "algal" oil have a similar price with fish oil, but only because they contain much less omega-3 fatty acids per capsule. If you read the fine print, then you discover the true price ratio.
Thus the price of equivalent fish oil is about 25 cents, a ratio of more than 2.6.
If you add to your price sales tax and shipping, it is likely that you arrive to the 3 times higher price that I have mentioned.
Because in most days I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients, which is significantly cheaper than industrially-produced food, I can eat very healthy and tasty food for about $5 per day (in Europe).
The food includes the equivalent in fish oil of 4 of your gummies, which might cost around $1.50 with taxes and shipping.
Paying 30% of the daily budget for food only for a supplement taken in a quantity negligible in comparison with the other food, does not seem right.
The reports that I have seen about fish oil have found negligible contamination in comparison with the fish from which it had been extracted. Obviously oil extracted from cultured Schizochytrium would be strongly preferable, if only its price would drop to not much more than fish oil. If it were e.g. +50% or even +80% more expensive than fish oil, instead of being triple, I would immediately switch to it.
In Europe, some vegetables and fruits are expensive, but those are not needed in so great quantities as to make a large fraction of the food budget. Staple food, like maize, wheat, lentils, beans, sunflower, proteins from whey or milk, chicken meat, gelatin etc. is cheap.
Edit: I think you mean Algae (which is EPA) Edit2: My mistake, I read Algal as ALA rather than Algae (algal)
The cultivated strains have been selected and/or genetically engineered to have enhanced production of certain long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.
The composition of an "algal" oil ("algal" is the adjective derived from "alga", "algae" is the plural of "alga") depends on the particular strain that the vendor has used in production.
The first cultivated strains produced only DHA, but in recent years most vendors use strains that allow them to sell oil that has a mixture 2:1 of DHA and EPA, with minor quantities of other long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.
For growing it would be difficult to obtain a good strain. The strains used by commercial producers were originally isolated from some mangrove forests or other such places on sea shores, but then they have passed through years of selection and/or gene manipulation. Even when a good strain would be available, a culture that is grown in less controlled conditions could be susceptible to being wiped out by a disease, I have no idea.
In any case, I think the difficulty is in the oil extraction, not in the culture. In industrial conditions the extraction could be made with supercritical carbon dioxide, for maximum cleanness of the extracted oil, but that would not be feasible at home. Using an organic solvent, like hexane, might be possible at home, but that would be dangerous and there is the risk of contamination of the edible oil with solvent residues.
Accurate chemical analysis of the oil would be needed, to determine the fatty acid profile and validate the extraction method.
But these results seem to say at higher concentrations ALA lowers risk of EOD. Which tends to refute the belief that only DHA/EPA lower chronic inflammation or that EOD is not just a story about inflammation.
The abstract only partitions the omega-3 acids in DHA and non-DHA.
While non-DHA includes ALA, without any concrete evidence that ALA has some direct role, it is more likely that the correlation seen with non-DHA refers not to ALA, but to the other long-chain omega-3 fatty acids besides DHA.
Humans can elongate ALA into useful long-chain acids, but the efficiency of this is typically lower in males than in females and lower in old people than in young people. Usually pregnant women have the best conversion efficiency.
Unless you monitor your blood composition, you cannot know if eating ALA (e.g. flax seeds or oil, or walnuts) can be sufficient for you. If you are an older male, it is very likely that eating ALA cannot be enough for avoiding deficiency.
Gummy supplements are questionable, especially for supplements that can have strong flavors and odors by themselves.
If you’re taking algal based gummies and thinking they taste good, they likely either have very little omega-3 or the ingredients have been so heavily processed that I’d start questioning if the omega-3 survived the processing
Eat some berries and nuts
"Paleo" diet doesn't even include that much meat in it
So many hoops to jump through to understand what the hell you're talking about, just to land on what could charitably be called the dumbest thing I'll read today if I'm lucky.
So yes, you eventually evolved for this, but it wasn’t the dominant food source for a loooooong time.
During different points of time the ration was very different. From "mostly nuts" to "mostly fish".
I know it’s all vague delineation of where our species really started, and at which point you would no longer consider it the homo line, but for a significant part of history we were a small predator that would eat whatever was _easily_ available. Hunting animals is not easy and it’s a risky endeavour.
I’m not saying meat wasn’t part of our diet obviously, but it logically wouldn’t have been as dominant a part of our diet as it is today.
There are various bits of evidence for this, like the higher stomach acidity of humans, which resembles that of carrion eaters, like hyenas.
It is plausible that the ability to throw sticks and stones was used initially for scaring other predators and make them abandon their prey, and only later, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, it became accurate enough to be usable for hunting living animals.
The ability to use stones to break the bones and eat the parts inaccessible for the carnivores who had killed the prey, i.e. marrow and brain, which are rich in hard to get nutrients, e.g. omega-3 fatty acids, is also presumed to have played an important role in the development of a bigger and bigger brain.
It is likely that the gangs of humans acted in a very similar way with the packs of hyenas, which acquire much of their food by scaring away from their prey the other predators, e.g. cheetahs, wild dogs, leopards and even lions. Moreover, similarly to humans, the most important ability of hyenas is not speed, but endurance when pursuing a possible prey that is tired or weakened, e.g. by wounds. While hyenas rely on their big teeth to chase the other predators, humans have relied on their ability to throw things at a distance, for the same purpose. While humans are quite bad at running, jumping, climbing or swimming, in comparison with most mammals, their throwing ability is unmatched by any other animal.
Diet is one of the very few places where your genetic ancestry actually matters – although your gut microbiome, which evolves faster (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00587), may not share quite the same ancestry as your human cell tissue.
Aside from lactose intolerance what else is different between humans?
Besides these cases, which are obvious due to immediate harm, and which are the reason for laws about food labeling that mentions lactose, gluten and various allergens, there is a lot of variability between humans in the efficiency of digesting various foods and in the capacity of absorption for various nutrients.
Some people are able to eat pretty much anything, while others are aware that they do not feel well after eating certain things, so they avoid them.
And if you look at our closest relatives chimpanzees, they also hunt without using tools. Humans and their ancestors probably ate whatever they had available, including meat.
Some may prefer to do it for personal pleasure, but also ease of life, or cost, which allows them to have time for things that they believe are also moral. Such as taking care of their children, working, and so on.
> [...] So did all other carnivores
> Abstaining from killing animals is about the sober realization that we can have perfectly healthy and happy lives without killing animals,
But I have enough hobbies and I don't want to risk missing some things we don't yet know about. I just eat what I evolved to eat.
So do I: plants!
I maybe too much of a individualist, so I get a little triggered when I see claims from others about the moral justification of what I should eat, what job I should have, who I should vote for... When these things that I do are not hurting myself or other humans.
Now I'm sure you could take an example of each one of these and "butterfly affect" to some example of hurting another human, but I could do the exact same thing to any one of [your] lifestyle choices.
why do you think this? I've lived seven healthy years with zero meat and am in superb physical shape. how many 30+ year olds do you know that can run a five minute mile? can you?
which makes the killing of animals to eat a needless act. because it's not needed.
However, some people have cultivated empathy for non-human beings to the point that killing an animal for an easier meal is morally equivalent to killing a human for an easier time on the road.
Some people have also recognized that a bit more difficulty in finding a place to eat is worth it to decrease the ecological impact of eating beef and cheese.
And some others still have realized that not everything should be hedonistic, and enjoy a plant-based diet that contributes to overall greater health even if it means a bit less (or rather, different - vegan food is delicious) sensory pleasure.
Shame can be a powerful motivator to be sure, but altruism and compassion are preferred, here.
Maybe? But until we get to the point where this is universally true, or I forget how good a prime fillet tastes, I don't see a good reason to stop eating meat.
Plenty of things you consume create suffering, in plants, in animals, but also in humans. Therefore, why just focus on killing certain animals?
Other ways can also be more beneficial overall, such as favoring local farms which respect animals. Those exist, although their products are more expensive. In the alpine mountains where I grew up, cows and goats had undoubtedly a better life than most humans on earth.
You can also change the way to work and consume - all of this vegan ethic isn't very coherent if, as a manager, you pressure your subordinates to the maximum, and fire your coworker who you suspect that she just got pregnant.
No one is pushing for these changes you suggest and to take a stance suggests a social disorder or mental illness.