Many of us have woken up to the raft of health benefits attached to ingesting creatures of the deep but sadly, fish doesn’t always come cheap. The good news is that the ultra economical tinned fish option gives us many of the health benefits that come with the fresh variety.
By Robert Carry
Problem is, some tins are far better than others when it comes to delivering lean protein and a dose of omega-3 – the much-touted fatty acid that can help prevent stroke, heart attacks, depression and anxiety while improving brain function and boosting your immune system. Here’s how to get the good stuff.
1. Avoid anything in sunflower or other oil
This is the very same oil you find in a chip pan so eating anything that has been soaking in it is bad news. As well as having far higher calories than other varieties, consuming processed oils of this kind means ramping up your cholesterol. To make matters worse, omega-3 is oil soluble. The sunflower oil actually leaches our favourite fatty acid from the fish which is then lost when the oil is drained.
2. Avoid brine
Brine, essentially salted water, is a far better choice than sunflower oil. That said, it does have a high sodium content which in turn is bad for your heart. Salt also works against you if you’re trying to lose weight in that it prompts the body to retain water. The extra moisture sits just below the skin, particularly in the stomach area, and can do a great job of masking that six-pack you’ve been diligently working on.
3. Go for spring water
Tomato sauce is one of the better options but the daddy in the world of healthy tinned fish accompaniments is spring water. It used to be hard to come by but these days, most supermarkets will stock a number of different fish varieties in spring water. It doesn’t leach the omega-3 and carries nothing that can do you any harm.
4. Don’t just stick with tuna
Tinned tuna is fine, but there are better options out there. Two to look out for are naturally oily fish such as salmon or mackerel; both contain more omega-3 than most other types of fish. And, because they both come with the edible bones still inside, they are a cracking source of calcium.
5. Avoid farmed fish
While tuna or mackerel are not the type of creatures you would find around a fish farm, salmon tends to be. Check the label to make sure any salmon you buy isn’t farmed – the battery hen variety can often contain PCBs from the polluted water they are reared in.
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