Eat To Live: Fish oil with everything?
Published: Jan. 3, 2007 at 4:03 PM
By JULIA WATSON
UPI Food Writer
RYE, England, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Food and restaurants aren't what they used to be. Go out to eat in a restaurant that has opened in the past five years and you're as likely -- or usually more likely -- to be dazzled by the interior design of the place as by the food.
Instead of forming an unobtrusive backdrop to what will appear on your square, oblique, glass plank, slate, or in some way over-wrought plate, a popular restaurant these days, by its architecture and detailing, confirms you as among the terminally hip of the moment, someone who operates at the glitterati end of daily life.
We are ready in restaurants designed to meet our décor-magazine-influenced expectations to accept dishes that may not be particularly well executed or whose ingredients don't actively complement one another, just as long as what is being attempted by the chef is presented in visibly cutting-edge surroundings. The place looks good, therefore the food must be.
It used to be we asked no more of food than to make us feel full or cosseted or impressed by skilful execution. On another level, the foodies among us are open to being intellectually stimulated by weird confections only if the edible end justifies the convoluted means.
Now, though, we apparently want food not just to fill our stomachs. It's got to have added value as a health remedy. We expect the simplest ingredients to cure us of existing frailties or protect us against the onset of new ones. It's not enough to drink milk because we need more calcium. Or to eat salmon or mackerel at least once a week to get our omega-3 fatty acids. We want them delivered by other means than a cow or a fish.
Tropicana has announced the launch this month of orange juice that hasn't just got more or less pulp in it. It's got omega-3. Omega Farms, which adds it -- in case its brand name didn't make it clear -- to the cheese and milk it sells is also going to boost its orange juice and yogurt with omega-3.
In November 2006 I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (known in this family as S'Not for short) introduced its Mediterranean Blend with the boast that it contains 400 milligrams of Omega-3 in every serving. Smear that on a slice of toast to dip into your Eggland's Best boiled egg, and you add a further 100 milligrams of Omega-3 to your intake. An egg from a hen that hasn't been chowing down on feed soused in canola oil will only deliver 37 milligrams.
Start your breakfast with a cup of one of the cereals boosted with extra omega-3 and you up your total by another 500 milligrams or so.
You'll be swimming to work like a fish, all flapping gills.
According to product research company Mintel, roughly 250 foods contained added omega-3 last year, up from 120 in 2004.
The information comes from a HealthFocus USA Trend Survey that finds that four out of 10 adults are looking to cut the risk of heart disease by adding more omega-3s to their diets. The fatty acid, primarily found in flax and hemp seed, some nuts, and oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring, has also been thought to cut risk of other diseases, like Alzheimer's.
If we stuck to eating like our grandparents did, we probably wouldn't have to rely on scientists to tamper with our food to keep us healthy. We would eat the foods that we believed held the cure to our increased wellbeing.
Grandma may have been a little vague as to why she put carrots on the plate ("They'll help you see in the dark, dear"), or served up spinach ("Makes you strong") and wanted us to finish our greens, swallow our milk, eat some cheese ("Don't you want to grow tall?"), but instinctively she understood the principle of eating properly. A well-balanced diet of good fresh food, simply cooked would produce sound minds in healthy bodies.
By all means add those omega-3 enriched foods to your diet. But don't ignore nature's prime deliverers of nutrients, minerals and benefits in their original state.
UPI Food Writer
RYE, England, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Food and restaurants aren't what they used to be. Go out to eat in a restaurant that has opened in the past five years and you're as likely -- or usually more likely -- to be dazzled by the interior design of the place as by the food.
Instead of forming an unobtrusive backdrop to what will appear on your square, oblique, glass plank, slate, or in some way over-wrought plate, a popular restaurant these days, by its architecture and detailing, confirms you as among the terminally hip of the moment, someone who operates at the glitterati end of daily life.
We are ready in restaurants designed to meet our décor-magazine-influenced expectations to accept dishes that may not be particularly well executed or whose ingredients don't actively complement one another, just as long as what is being attempted by the chef is presented in visibly cutting-edge surroundings. The place looks good, therefore the food must be.
It used to be we asked no more of food than to make us feel full or cosseted or impressed by skilful execution. On another level, the foodies among us are open to being intellectually stimulated by weird confections only if the edible end justifies the convoluted means.
Now, though, we apparently want food not just to fill our stomachs. It's got to have added value as a health remedy. We expect the simplest ingredients to cure us of existing frailties or protect us against the onset of new ones. It's not enough to drink milk because we need more calcium. Or to eat salmon or mackerel at least once a week to get our omega-3 fatty acids. We want them delivered by other means than a cow or a fish.
Tropicana has announced the launch this month of orange juice that hasn't just got more or less pulp in it. It's got omega-3. Omega Farms, which adds it -- in case its brand name didn't make it clear -- to the cheese and milk it sells is also going to boost its orange juice and yogurt with omega-3.
In November 2006 I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (known in this family as S'Not for short) introduced its Mediterranean Blend with the boast that it contains 400 milligrams of Omega-3 in every serving. Smear that on a slice of toast to dip into your Eggland's Best boiled egg, and you add a further 100 milligrams of Omega-3 to your intake. An egg from a hen that hasn't been chowing down on feed soused in canola oil will only deliver 37 milligrams.
Start your breakfast with a cup of one of the cereals boosted with extra omega-3 and you up your total by another 500 milligrams or so.
You'll be swimming to work like a fish, all flapping gills.
According to product research company Mintel, roughly 250 foods contained added omega-3 last year, up from 120 in 2004.
The information comes from a HealthFocus USA Trend Survey that finds that four out of 10 adults are looking to cut the risk of heart disease by adding more omega-3s to their diets. The fatty acid, primarily found in flax and hemp seed, some nuts, and oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring, has also been thought to cut risk of other diseases, like Alzheimer's.
If we stuck to eating like our grandparents did, we probably wouldn't have to rely on scientists to tamper with our food to keep us healthy. We would eat the foods that we believed held the cure to our increased wellbeing.
Grandma may have been a little vague as to why she put carrots on the plate ("They'll help you see in the dark, dear"), or served up spinach ("Makes you strong") and wanted us to finish our greens, swallow our milk, eat some cheese ("Don't you want to grow tall?"), but instinctively she understood the principle of eating properly. A well-balanced diet of good fresh food, simply cooked would produce sound minds in healthy bodies.
By all means add those omega-3 enriched foods to your diet. But don't ignore nature's prime deliverers of nutrients, minerals and benefits in their original state.
© 2007 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
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