Caviar emptor: Herring omega-3 gains UK debut
The supplement is manufactured by Tom Oliver Nutrition and is sourced from caviar derived from herring caught for other purposes.
"Bringing sustainable and all natural products to our customers is what we do at Whole Foods Market,” said Andrew Ragatz , health and beauty associate coordinator, Whole Foods Market UK.
“Tom Oliver Nutrition’s ‘Omega 3 MOPL Herring Caviar’ is the UK’s first environmentally friendly phospholipid omega-3 supplement and we are happy to support it in our stores.”
Similar phospholipid omega-3 forms are typically sourced from Antarctic krill, a source that Whole Foods refuses to stock over concerns about that fishery even though it is has been pronounced well-managed by the likes of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the British Antarctic Survey.
The Antarctic krill fishery is also monitored by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).
Phospholipids, triglycerides
Typically, fish oil sources like anchovy have omega-3 in triglyceride form while krill oil delivers omega-3 in phospholipid form.
Putting sustainability issues to one side, Mary Dicklin, PhD, from Biofortis Clinical Research, told our sister site NutraIngredients-USA.com last year: “At this time, a judgment of the superiority of one form of omega-3 to another relates primarily to differences in their bioavailability and EPA/DHA content.”
“Products that do not require digestive enzymes in order to be absorbed, i.e., free fatty acid and phospholipid omega-3s, would be expected to have higher bioavailability than triglyceride and ethyl ester forms, and this would lead to more efficient incorporation of EPA and DHA into target organs.”
DHA omega-3 is most strongly linked to cognitive and cardiovascular health.
More on that here.
