Good quality wild salmon oil has some advantages over regular fish oil supplements, although the issue is muddied by a lot of variables.

The first question to answer, is where does the fish oil in the supplement come from? One wild salmon supplement manufacturer writes that:

“Most commercially available fish oils have rather mysterious origins. This is because many of them begin as a low grade by-product of rendering plants, requiring excessive processing before they are fit for human consumption. This process results in fish oil that is anything but natural. While molecular distillation is often advertised as a plus, and indeed does reduce contaminants, some researchers believe it also denatures the oil and lowers its beneficial value.”  (www.calcompnutrition.com/salmon-oil.html)

It is true that high levels of heat will denature fats. That is how any beneficial fatty acids in oils can be turned into trans fatty acids, which are universally accepted as being bad for your health. However, many fish oil supplement producers understand this issue, and have developed ways to deal with it so that the finished product is unharmed by the manufacturing process.

For example, Minami Nutrition use a special low temperature distillation process that ensures the EPA and DHA fatty acids are not harmed. They also don’t use acetone or chemicals such as hexane as do many manufacturers of cheap products. Interestingly, Minami actually get their oil from wild fish, although they don’t seem to use salmon. They use mackerel, anchovies, and sardines.

The use of anchovies, mackerel, and sardines as fish oil sources has been taken up by a few companies because it means more sustainable fisheries that affect numbers of wild ocean stock less.

I read in one article on choosing the best type of fish oil, that you should opt for companies that specify which fish they produce the oil from. For example, ‘Wild Salmon Oil’ would thus be preferred to simply ‘Fish Oil’. However, I have found this not to be the case. There are plenty of good quality omega 3 fish supplements that are made from a mixture of fish, such as mackerel, anchovies, and sardines. And many company websites have an FAQ that answers these types of questions.

What is a bigger key in determining quality is:

• whether the fish oil is distilled at high temperatures
• whether chemical solvents are used
• whether the fish oil is contaminated with mercury
• the level of EPA and DHA essential fatty acids that are found in the supplement (as a rough guide, if you need to take a lot of capsules, this is a red flag)
• how the fish by-products the oil is made from are handled
• whether the fish oil is exposed to oxygen in processing and storage. Oxidation is going to significantly affect the quality of the fish oil, and is the reason it goes rancid. Fish oil is more unstable than a lot of other oils, and the exposure to heat, oxygen, light, and metals, needs to be minimized to preserve potency.

So, does wild salmon oil have any advantages?

The answer is yes!

One of the benefits of some types of wild salmon fish oils that are made from Alaskan sockeye salmon is that they are high in an antioxidant called astaxanthin. This antioxidant is a type of carotenoid that is up to 100 times more powerful than vitamin E. Antioxidants help prevent free radical damage to the cells in our body.

Alaskan sockeye is a popular choice for manufacturers of wild salmon oils, as this is an abundant species of wild salmon. Look for whether the fish oil was harvested using sustainable practices, and make sure that it is processed properly. Vital Choice is a good brand, but some others worth checking out include Natural Factors, and N.V. Perricone.