Food for the heart

So we are all in reaction phase at the moment (even though there has been confirmation that my sister has no history of high cholesterol), and one of the things you can do for your heart is eat more of the good oils (or omega 3 fatty acids). The list of their benefits is impressive―see here for one example. On looking at the amounts of these oils in various foods I discovered a very nice excuse to eat fresh atlantic salmon: canned salmon, at 500mg per 60gm serve, has more than three times the Omega 3s of canned tuna at 145 mg, which I eat quite often, and fresh salmon at 1200 mg has more than twice the amount of the canned version. I love atlantic salmon! Or you could say, I ♥ atlantic salmon (that would be a good t-shirt slogan don't you think?). It also contains lower levels of mercury than some other types of fish, and I don't like to eat heavy metal any more than I like to listen to it. So, I just trotted off to the fish markets with a work friend in my lunch break to get some. The only draw back here is the price of $23 kg―but believe me, if it prevents you having a heart attack and then being medicated up to your eye balls, it's worth it.

If you clicked on the link above you may have noticed that the only thing higher in these good oils than fresh salmon is sardines. Sardines can come cheap. I think we had these occasionally as kids but I had forgotten what they even tasted like. So I just tried eating some on my bread roll for lunch. Hmmm. I am not so sure about sardines. For a starters it's rather disconcerting being faced with whole little fishes. I had to try not to think about the poor, wee things as I took the first bite. And they were drowning in some kind of tomato sauce that oozed and dripped everywhere, which I had to try not to think about either.

The salmon is looking really good.