HARES IN THE SEA, SARDINES IN THE HILLS
Some facts we don't hear about in the news.
Omega 3 (Ω3) is a polyunsaturated
fatty acid (good cholesterol). Essential to our lives, we
obtain it from, for example, sesame, nuts, and oily fish. As far as healthy cholesterol levels go, the most important fact is the proportion
of Ω6/Ω3 (Omega 6 is another polyunsaturated fat); it is recommended that it be no more than
4 to 1.
Milk labels
in stores mention
"fat" and that's it. Labels on milk enriched with Ω3 differentiate between fats but do not indicate
the Ω6/Ω3 proportion.
Various scientific studies show that the milk
from cows that graze in pastures or eat fresh grass
contain the recommended proportion of
Ω6/Ω3, while the milk of cows with
an elevated amount of concentrated feed in their diet
have too much Ω6 and too little Ω3, as well as a larger proportion of saturated fats.1
Partial logic,
total outrage
The logic that gives
rise to the birth of functional foods like Omega 3-enriched milk is overwhelming. Let's have a look. A commercial sensitivity exists regarding serious health problems related to excessive consumption of saturated fat. Milk is a food that contains fat (saturated and unsaturated). Later I skim it and eliminate
all types of fat.
I then sell the fat or use it in other products
(creams and butters).2 Given the current
need to differentiate skimming alone it is not particularly
striking. But what if
I add good cholesterol to it? I extract Ω3 from oily fish, put it in standard skim milk, and there you have
it: milk that is not only not bad for cholesterol,
but good for it.
Is this true? The view of diverse experts consulted can be summed up like this: In the majority of cases, it has not been demonstrated that either
enrichment dosages or the enriched product is the most adequate means of
reaching the desired objective.3 And the
fact is this debate unravels in relativism: nothing is true or false; everything is coloured by the lens
through which it is perceived.
But let's take things a step
further than this debate. If we want non-fat
milk with sufficient Ω3, why does the industry
continue demanding of cattle farmers high levels of generic fat, thereby fomenting the use
of concentrated feed that imbalances the proportion of
Ω6/Ω3? Why is a cattle
farmer that pastures his livestock and therefore produces milk with a salubrious
proportion of Ω6/Ω3 punished
economically for producing milk low in saturated
fat? Why in the 21st century are fats spoken about as if they
were all the same? Why with current
cholesterol problems is excessive consumption of dairy products continuously and deceptively recommended?
The "overwhelming logic" that we mentioned before
is in fact a partial logic that makes
sense only in marketing departments
– a logic that considers food a detachable object from which pieces
are extracted and into which they
are inserted, not the result
of a process originating with the land
and animals. In fact,
in the course of our research, we
observed indifference or surprise in the majority of experts consulted (cattle farmers, industry, researchers) regarding how to obtain certain qualities in the final product based on the manner
in which animals are fed. And it is out of this partial logic that
the notion of functional food emerges, which views health and diet in a segmented way: This
aspect of health has to do with this nutrient; if I consume it in large doses
I'm covered.
Segmenting the process in search only of partial logic ultimately
generates total outrage: the society of global cholesterol, with lucrative enriched milk from large
impoverished cows and empty pastures and villages. A logic that does not
allow us to see that the Omega 3 of sardines is now running through
the hills. Why don't we see
it?
1. Various studies. The Puleva Omega 3
Institute (
2.
3. Researcher in nutrition at the