Consumer interest in omega-3 is not as high this year as it was in the 2005-2007 time frame. Perhaps it’s because we’ve been inundated by so many omega-3 messages on the news, web, and supermarket that most of us have simply come to accept the easy to remember association:  “omega-3 = good”.  In the same time period we also learned that “trans-fat = evil”.

It’s a bit like Star Wars , what with the dark and light side of the force. The “force” here is fatty acids, or what dietary fats (animal fat and vegetable oils) are composed of.

While the trans-fat message is quite simple at the practical level – just avoid products containing it – with omega 3 things are a bit more complicated. And when something is not as simple as good/bad, you can be sure there’s lots of money to be made off of the public’s ignorance. Enter the thousands of processed products now marked with “omega-3″ in large font type on the front of the package.

The analogy to Star Wars ends here because not all omega-3’s are created equal. Which means you may be buying a product fortified with omega-3 that has almost no health benefits for you. Yet you will likely be paying more than you would have for the standard, un-enriched version. In order to better understand what’s going on, here’s a quick primer on omega-3, in 10 bullet points. Read more…

The creative marketers at Nestle have been pushing various flavors of Juicy Juice liquid candy at parents for several years with great success. But it wasn’t enough.

Always under pressure to sell more and grow (hey it’s the American way!), they now present us with a new line of juice that will turn our tiny tots into little Einsteins. From the Washington Post Blog:

A big blue banner across the front of the package screams, “Brain Development,” while the smaller type just above the banner says, “DHA — A Building Block for”…

Imagine the eager moms and dads who’ll grab that Juicy Juice in hopes of making their kids just that much smarter. DHA, derived from fatty fish and other omega-3 fatty-acid-rich food sources, is indeed credited with promoting neurological health among babies, and it’s been added to many infant formulas for nearly a decade, though there’s no real science showing that DHA makes anyone smarter.

We decided to take a look under the hood… Read more…