I use Vitacost. Don't know if they're any better than others. US$10 shipping to NZ for a moderate sized box.

How do you qualify what is "rubbish"? Presumably with that statement you must already have some parameters in mind that constitute what is good/bad so wouldn't it just be a process of looking at the label?

What you are looking for is an oil that contains both DHA and EPA.  There is no proven ratio that is best for you.

Assuming that is OK the major issue is oxidation.  Fish oil that has been incorrectly processed or been on the shelf a long time can be oxidised, which can make it useless or harmful (according to some researchers).  This is difficult for consumers to judge so checking the pack date is your option along with buying from a shop with high turnover.

The final thing to watch out for is that the fish-oil is deodorised or micro encapsulated - this avoids 'fishy burps'.

Personally, I take Nordic Naturals.

You are probably better to try and slip salmon (or other oily fish) into your diet a couple of times a week if possible.

Many studies showed that fish oil in tablet form (processed) is not absorbed as well and doesnt have the same positive beneifits as fish oil from actual fish - as well as the notes above about being potentially oxidised.

irongarment: Answer: none of them.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/omega-3-good-fat-fish-oil-cod-liver-heart-attack-stroke-disease-death-cardiovascular-a8451426.html

But I'm sure some suckers still buy them.

Yeah - it's interesting that - if correct.

I'd suggest that perhaps the healthy population correlation with rich seafood diets might turn out to be a case of what they're not eating - rather than some specific benefit from eating fish.  I wouldn't assume that it's saturated animal fats either - there's probably a hell of a lot of other things in a modern processed food diet that wouldn't have been in a traditional fish-based diet.  It's apparently not genetics either, ie AFAIK Japanese people living in America and adopting the American diet/lifestyle have similar disease rates to the general US population.

It could be potatoes, or toothpaste, or cornflakes, or something dropping out of chemtrails :-)

robjg63:

[Snip] You are probably better to try and slip salmon (or other oily fish) into your diet a couple of times a week if possible.

 

OMG farmed smoked salmon is toxic, i can link u a documentary if u can stomach mush hearts and 3 eyes type thing lol. wild smoked salmon is totally delish.

Supposedly I need somethng high in DHA. Nordic Naturals was the one I was looking at too.

Another, dont believe this health trend, rubbish journalism.

eracode:

Smoked salmon with cream cheese on a lightly toasted bagel, with a few capers scattered on top and maybe a couple of drops of lemon juice. Best medication I can think of.

+1 Sooo good, you read my mind.  Don't forget some fresh dill if you want to get fancy.  And I like a few jalepenos chopped up with the capers to give it a little kick. 

TeaLeaf:

 

OMG farmed smoked salmon is toxic, i can link u a documentary if u can stomach mush hearts and 3 eyes type thing lol. wild smoked salmon is totally delish.

 

Supposedly I need somethng high in DHA. Nordic Naturals was the one I was looking at too.

 

Another, dont believe this health trend, rubbish journalism.

 

I think you need to update your understanding of salmon farming, particularly the way it's undertaken in NZ.

I can't comment on overseas product but NZ grown salmon is responsibly produced and meets stringent food safety requirements.

TeaLeaf:

 

OMG farmed smoked salmon is toxic, i can link u a documentary if u can stomach mush hearts and 3 eyes type thing lol. wild smoked salmon is totally delish.

 

Supposedly I need somethng high in DHA. Nordic Naturals was the one I was looking at too.

 

Another, dont believe this health trend, rubbish journalism.

 

What? But consuming heavily processed Omega extracted by wall of death ocean trawling is better?

Hmm.

Sacrilege to say I guess, but I quite like the frozen Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon, often on special for $25/kg at Countdown. 

It's not as oily as NZ farmed king salmon.  It's been pin-boned - which is a bonus.  Once thawed (I just bung the sealed pack in cold water in the sink to defrost it), it loses about the right amount of moisture to be able to be simply prepped for smoking (I don't bother brining it etc), pat it dry, season it and it's ready to go.  I usually smoke it in the Weber Q with manuka chips in the smoker box accessory.  Tends to be a bit flakier/firmer than the local product, but delicious.

I think the Tasmanian farms also do Atlantic Salmon sold in Aus supermarkets etc - it's nicer fresh (than the frozen stuff I'm talking about) - different than what we get in NZ.  I wouldn't put a subjective "better" WRT NZ king Salmon, it's nice - but different.

Farmed salmon used to have a big environmental question mark over it.  The fish are quite particular over feed and need a very high protein and oil/fat diet.  They used to make the meal using "anchovita" harvested off the W coast of S America (Local NZ fishmeal was considered a bit high in mercury - it's an accumulative poison). This was an environmental disaster, the world salmon farming industry was plundering so much that millions of seabirds were starving.  Anyway since then, they've formulated feed using vegetable proteins and oils, supplemented with meat meals.  The environmental harm may have been overstated - I did read counter-arguments that the anchovita population varied with La Nina / El Nino conditions - and it wasn't from ships strip mining the ocean for a cheap commodity.  Gulp - I imported hundreds, probably thousands of tonnes of the stuff.

The rich colour is from astaxanthin added to the diet.  Wild salmon isn't usually that strongly coloured.

I was at L Benmore at Easter when the landlocked salmon in the lake were spawning in creeks.  A curious but kind of sad sight, thousands of salmon that had spawned, still alive but decaying, skin fins and tails falling off, idly swimming just holding their position in the stream, one by one dying off and drifting away downstream.  

I'm using Viva Labs. I spent a ridiculous number of hours researching fish oil and ended up settling on their brand, seems to be purest.

Fred99:

 

Farmed salmon used to have a big environmental question mark over it.  The fish are quite particular over feed and need a very high protein and oil/fat diet.  They used to make the meal using "anchovita" harvested off the W coast of S America (Local NZ fishmeal was considered a bit high in mercury - it's an accumulative poison). This was an environmental disaster, the world salmon farming industry was plundering so much that millions of seabirds were starving.  Anyway since then, they've formulated feed using vegetable proteins and oils, supplemented with meat meals.  The environmental harm may have been overstated - I did read counter-arguments that the anchovita population varied with La Nina / El Nino conditions - and it wasn't from ships strip mining the ocean for a cheap commodity.  Gulp - I imported hundreds, probably thousands of tonnes of the stuff.

 

The rich colour is from astaxanthin added to the diet.  Wild salmon isn't usually that strongly coloured.

 

I was at L Benmore at Easter when the landlocked salmon in the lake were spawning in creeks.  A curious but kind of sad sight, thousands of salmon that had spawned, still alive but decaying, skin fins and tails falling off, idly swimming just holding their position in the stream, one by one dying off and drifting away downstream.  

 

If you look up the FAO data on non-food fisheries (published biennially in the SOFIA report).  These are fish like anchovetta that are used as feed for mono-gastric animals.  Harvests have been largely stable since about the 1960s, yet in that time the salmon industry has gone from nowhere to a couple of million tonnes.  The fisheries are naturally boom and bust because those sorts of fish are highly fecund, short-lived and tend to feed on plankton and the populations of plankton fluctuates dramatically depending on annual climate conditions.  The big fisheries tend to be locate around upwelling zones and upwelling is often dependent on wind direction (El Nino/La Nina etc).

Fish meal and fish oil is routinely produced in NZ (mostly produced at sea) and exported, without regulatory issues with mercury.  Salmon feed is not made in NZ (the industry isn't big enough to support a mill).  Salmon feed is imported ready made from Australian and South American mills.  Modern salmon feeds can contain a variety of animal and plant proteins and lipids.  Wild salmonids have an extremely varied diet.  They will eat fish, crustacea, shellfish, worms, insects, ducklings, mice, frogs ...

Salmon need astaxanthin - it's an important micro-nutrient in their diets.  In the wild they get it from crustacea and other animals that have been grazing algae (which makes astaxanthin).  Wild salmonids get very red and oily flesh if they have a diet rich in crustacea or in snails that have been grazing epiphytic diatoms.  For manufactured diets it's synthesised.