Health Benefits
Like meats, fish and shellfish are good
sources of protein, the B vitamins, and various
minerals. Iodine and calcium are special
strengths. Many fish are very lean, and so
offer these nutrients along with relatively few
calories. But the fat of ocean fish turns out to
be especially valuable in its own right. Like
other fats that are liquid at room temperature,
fish fats are usually referred to as “oils.”
The Benefits of Fish Oils As we’ll see (p.
189), life in cold water has endowed sea
creatures with fats rich in unusual, highly
unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids. (The name
means that the first kink in the long chain of
carbon atoms is at the third link from the end;
see p. 801.) The human body can’t make these
fatty acids very efficiently from other fatty
acids, so our diet supplies most of them. A
growing body of evidence indicates that they
happen to have a number of beneficial