Overcoming Our Worries About the Fat Content of Fish

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Consumption of fish has always been dramatically different in different parts of the world, and nowhere is fish as widely available and yet as sparsely eaten as in the United States. U.S. adults average less than one ounce of fish per week. Now, compare that amount with the average fish consumption in a country like Spain, where adults average over 4 ounces of fish per day!

Researchers at Ghent University in Gent, Belgium wondered what motivated persons in different countries to consume such widely different amounts of fish, and they looked closely at fish consumption in five European countries to try and find the answer. (The five countries were Spain, Denmark, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands.) It turned out that medical history (specifically, risk of cardiovascular disease) did not do a very good job in motivating people to eat heart-supportive fish like salmon. Instead, cultural traditions and habits, together with the mistaken perception that any high-fat food is unhealthy, appeared more important as motivating factors in the decision to eat or avoid fish. The researchers noted that for some individuals, all high-fat foods had a reputation as being “bad foods” simply because of their high-fat content, and this mistaken perception appeared to explain some of the reluctance in certain countries for individuals to adopt regular intake of heart-healthy fatty fish like salmon.

We suspect that this very interesting observation applies to many of us in the United States as well. All fish are not created equal, and some fish are naturally fatty. (This same principle applies to plant foods, in which some parts of plants, like nuts and seeds, are especially high in fat.) But naturally fatty does not automatically mean unhealthy. In the case of fish like salmon and nuts like walnuts there are highly beneficial amounts of omega-3 fats that cannot be found in other low-fat fish or low-fat parts of plants. All of us need these omega-3 fats to protect us from chronic disease, including heart disease. The sooner we overcome our worries about fatty fish, and incorporate high-quality, omega-3 containing fatty fish (like wild-caught Pacific salmon), the more likely we are to lower our disease risks.

Practical tip:

Try not to judge a food just by its overall fat content. Look at foods such as cold-water fish (like salmon), walnuts, flaxseeds as beneficial since they are rich in health-promoting omega-3 fatty acids.