Correct Wendy,
this is similar to vitamins- many vitamins are destroyed by cooking. They
aren't destroyed entirely- I think this may be discussed in The Omega Diet.

I wrote to Simopoulos that perhaps the French habit of eating their meat
almost bleeding (thus preserving the omega's) may help their low rate of
heart disease and cancer, but she didn't buy it!

Today I telephoned the maker of Australian "UP" bread (by Tip Top) which has
added fish oil, and the dietitian there told me that the DHA content listed
on the packaging was measured AFTER baking not before.

The USDA have a list of vitamin retentions
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/index.html#retention
This doesn't include DHA and EPA, but the principle is the same.

As I have indicated, omega 3's (N-3 or W-3 are the usual abbreviations), are
very subject to oxidation. This is nicely discussed by Prof Saldeen, along
with good info on N-3 and health at
http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Nutrition/sald19.htm in an
article at Positive Health, a magazine that has some good articles and some
bad ones. (i.e. it goes from alternative scientific to alternative froot
loops).

When people take flax seed oil (I recommend only one teaspoon a day, if you
must do that), I recommend they add a capsule of 500mg Vitamin E to the
bottle when they open it, to help preserve it, in line with Saldeen's
observations. They should still keep it in the fridge, protected from light.
You need to keep the intake down to 1 tsp to keep below the ISSFAL
recommended maximum intake of LA of 6.67 g per day www.issfal.org.uk . BTW
excess vitamin E as a supplement is dangerous (get it from Paleo foods not
pills)( www.victorherbert.com ).

Ben Balzer

-----Original Message-----
From: Paleolithic Eating Support List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Wendy Hubbard
Sent: Friday, 23 August 2002 3:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Omega-3's


I have a question about Omega 3 stability.  I see frequent discussion about
how unstable the O3's are, so wouldn't they be destroyed by cooking
heat?  Yet we talk about cooking all of these foods and eating them for
their O3 content.