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This is an excellent, concise, clear explanation, thank you. > fish oil is only sold by EPA/DHA concentration. Nobody will buy natural fish oil because the EPA
by nate_meurer 8y ago
This is an excellent, concise, clear explanation, thank you.
> fish oil is only sold by EPA/DHA concentration. Nobody will buy natural fish oil because the EPA/DHA levels are too low.
So only free fatty acids are allowed to be listed on the label as EPA/DHA? They're not allowed to count any esterified fatty acids?
- mrob 8y agoI don't know the details of labeling laws, but I believe fish oil is most commonly sold as ethyl esters, and this is called "fish oil concentrate". Free fatty acids are considered a defect in edible oils. They taste rancid and make the oil decay faster. Triglycerides and ethyl esters both get digested in the small intestine by pancreatic lipase enzymes, releasing free fatty acids where you can't taste them. Both raise blood levels of free fatty acids, and the quantity of ethanol released from the ethyl esters is small enough that I think it's very unlikely to matter. But as the article points out, phospolipids get digested differently, and phospolipids are converted to ethyl esters in the transesterification processing too. By focusing only on blood levels of fatty acids, people overlooked a potentially important difference between natural and processed fish oil.