Is grass-fed butter an adequate source of long chain (C-20 and above) omega-3 fatty acids? Clearly it contains some, but it never seems to be mentioned as a source. Is that because the assumption is that most people don’t eat enough butter for it to matter?
I probably eat at least 4 Tablespoons of butter a day, so packages of the stuff don’t sit around long at my house!
I suppose it depends on the meaning of “adequate source.”
In a diet where we are overwhelming ourselves with ω-6 fatty acids, an “adequate” amount of ω-3 would be difficult to achieve. (Since they are both handled by the same cell receptor, they need to be ingested in about equal proportion in order to have an equal chance of making it into the cells, or so I understand).
On the other hand, while ω-6 and ω-3 fatty acids are essential to human health, I suspect the necessary quantities of either are actually fairly small. (I’m sure someone has worked it out, but I’ve never seen the study.) So in the absence of excessive ω-6 intake, it might be possible for a reasonable amount of butter to supply an adequate amount of ω-3.
Just going by my personal N = 1, I eat a lot of butter and avoid seed oils, and I seem to be fine.
Most (all?) of the studies on O3 are based on high(er) carb people. It’s unclear to me that if you’re avoiding most/many PUFAs that you need high O3.
But if you do want high O3, I think the only way to get it is to eat fish. I have been avoiding PUFAs for years, try to eat a low PUFA diet, but my O6:O3 ratio is poor. 6:1. I think that’s because while my O6 is low, I’m not getting much O3.
MAYBE if I ate all grass fed/finished beef, it might be better. But I can’t afford grass fed/finished. And the amount of O3 in beef, even grass fed/finished, is small compared to fish.
Only butter I eat is grass fed. Hoping it is enough to help with O3. I also try to eat fish several times a week and take supplement of it as well.
I have been seeing recently that chicken is actually high in O6, so I am starting to cut back on that now. I want to do another CAC scan around the first of next year, hoping all this helps, along with the other things I am doing to reduce/stabalize my number which is in the lower half of mid range.
Grass fed butter tastes so much better.
If I remember the 3:6 ratio goes from 1:10 to 1:5?
I’m a believer of aiming for a 1:1 ratio. It’s hard though.
It can be. This is mainly for pork, though it applied to chicken too:
Unfortunately, there’s no way to know what a chicken (or pig) actually eats. Even the chickens I get from the local farmer, I have no idea what they eat.
[quote=“ctviggen, post:6, topic:110185”]
Unfortunately, there’s no way to know what a chicken (or pig) actually eats. Even the chickens I get from the local farmer, I have no idea what they eat.[/quote]
Free range chicks eat bugs & mice.
Cage free chickens eat commodity feed.
Commodity chicks eat commodity feed and “therapeutic” antibiotics.
Though if you’re relying on the term “free range” or “cage free”, these are not well defined. I get an email from Regeneration substack, see this one addressing the issue:
I will say the chickens from the farm are much tastier then normal chickens. But I have no idea what that means for PUFAs, sat fat, etc.
Believe me, the “normal” way chickens are raised, in massive structures they never leave, is disheartening.
Uhg. I succumbed to the low-price lure of some on-sale pork shoulder recently and smoked a bunch of it.
Any idea if Niman Ranch pork is any better?
Problem is none of them list assumed Omega content and they really couldn’t, it’d be a rough guess at best without lab testing constantly. I just supplement it in and then I know I’m getting it.
I take omega3 supplements, eat only grass fed butter, have sardines and salmon frequently. Recently I noticed that almond flour has a good deal of omega 6, so I am stating to cut back on that. I don’t worry about balance, as I have no way to really tell what is in everything I eat, not listed on labels, so I do what I do and stay pretty darned healthy.