Not eating fish means your brain will be inferior. Fact?

[bintofbohemia]

Anyone hear the Food Programme on Radio 4 the other night? I missed the beginning and end but the gist I got was that is you don't eat fish (especially when pregnant) then you and your children will not reach the potential you might have done otherwise. You can't supplement it after the event and the long chain fatty acids that you really need are in fish flesh and not the oil.

As a vegetarian this depresses me a bit. We eat eggs etc but nothing with a face (and a few things without are off the menu, eg shellfish) and I'm currently feeling a bit guilty that my kids might be thickos because of my moral and spiritual convictions.

Can anyone cheer up my poor inferior brain on this one?

We eat flax, linseed, spirulina etc, but I can't get my head round eating dead stuff and can't see that ever changing.

Don't make me larf... it might have the tiniest effect on intelligence but I'm pretty sure that intelligence comes from more than just food.

Really, this myth has been knocking around for years. We are all veggie and are the most intelligent people I know

Sparkly - I think I love you. I have been overthinking and wondering if I ought to sacrifice my beliefs for some sort of fishy supplement. And I don't want to.

But this programme was quite compelling and sciencey.

I heard the last 50% of that programme and I thought (or at least what I took away from it) was that the benefits of eating oily fish were only applicable during female teenage years (laying down the (fish oil) fat in readiness for pregnancy) and during pregnancy so that any kind of fish/fish oil supplement beyond birth was negligible.

Or maybe that's what you're saying?

I definitely remember one of them saying that if you are going to be an Einstein then you would be and no amount of fish oil supplement during pregnancy/after birth etc would make a bit of difference.

I listened to a similar sounding programme on BBC Radio 4 Case Notes programme. They probably had the same researchers etc! From what I remember, nuts and seeds are also good sources of Omega 3.

Debs - yeah, that was what I thought, so basically the damage is done now, if that is the case. Or I think the developing brain up until about 2 years benefits, but I dunno how you get children that age to eat anything nutritious, let alone oily fish.

They also said it's important for chidren to eat lots of fruit and veg to get all the micronutrients they need too.

I heard this too and also got a bit depressed. I do eat fish, but then you've got the whole mercury/pcb thing to deal with.

I think the thing is that long chain omega 3 really is essential for the brain, and they only occur naturally in fish, but if you get enough short chain omega 3 (from flaxseed, nuts etc), your body can synthesise this into the long chain version. However, this synthesising process is hampered if you have too much omega 6 in your diet, which nearly all of us do nowadays apparently. So if I understood it right I think the main thing is to cut down on omega 6.

bollox