Seafood lipids and fatty acids

Abstract

The consumer is very inadequately informed on seafood composition because of variable fat levels in some species, confusion in species nomenclature, failure to recognize the increasing proportion of imports, influence of aquaculture practices, and the actual fish contents of convenience foods. Concerns about safety considerations are primed by the controversy between advocates of fish as food and marketers of fish oil concentrates in capsules. There are in fact very few problems with fish and shellfish, when these are carefully inspected, or with fish oil concentrates, which are prepared from highly purified natural materials. The bioavailability of different forms of omega‐3 fatty acids attached to glycerol, or sold as ethyl esters or free fatty acids, must be addressed. Therefore, the absorption and distribution in the body of various forms of omega‐3 fatty acids is outlined.