Omega 3 Sources in Healthy Salads

Omega 3 sources can be added to healthy salads. They are low glycemic foods that lower blood sugar and help you to burn fat! The best salads are made up of highly nutritious, fiber dense raw foods and your omega 3 proteins, fish, seeds and nuts. The marine foods which are the best omega 3 sources are actually fat burning foods. A new Australian study (University of S. Australia, Adelaide, Dept. of Nutritional Physiology, March 2005) indicates that consumption of fish combined with moderate aerobic exercise supports weight control. According to the study, the marine omega 3s stimulate secretion of leptin, the hormone that decreases appetite and promotes the burning of body fat. The omega 3s in fish also promote burning of fats by helping move fatty acids into cells for burning as fuel.

The richest sources for omega 3s are salmon and other fish, striped bass, wild trout, oysters, tuna, herring and sablefish. Buy wild salmon if you can. The best plant based omega 3 sources are walnuts and flaxseed. The oils that contain the most omega 3 fatty acids are canola oil and olive oil. Flaxseeds are a good plant source of omega-3s and can be consumed in flaxseed meal that you can sprinkle on your cereal. The omega 3s are the essential fatty acids that our bodies don't produce so we need to add them to our diets. The omega 6s are in meat, butter, coconut oil, cottonseed oil, palm oil and full fat dairy products like cream and cheese. We need to eat a lot more of the omega 3s and less of the omega 6s (saturated fats.) In fact, to maintain fat loss we need to limit the saturated fats. All fats should be at least 30% of our diets.

Salads (no croutons)

Let's not forget that the foundation of the salad, the dark leafy greens, are full of powerful nutrients. Nowadays we have a big variety to choose from. When you add chopped walnuts, salmon or tuna or avocado to a salad you have a complete, nutritious meal that can be very filling yet still not raise your blood sugar. In fact, when you add chopped nuts like walnuts and avocado you have included foods that lower blood sugar because they lower insulin resistance. These super salads are low in saturated fat and high in omega 3 fatty acids, the "good fats." Of course you must have a light salad dressing.

A glycemic response of a meal may be lowered by having a salad with the meal if it has the proper dressing. The dressing must have the following proportions of oil to vinegar: 4 teaspoons of lemon juice or red wine vinegar to 2 teaspoons of olive oil (or canola oil.)

Most commercial, bottled salad dressings are high glycemic due to the additives so you need to read the labels carefully. Corn syrup and maltodextrins are high glycemic.

Did you know that the red potato, which is high in Vitamin C and has a low starch content can also be an excellent choice for a salad if it is cooked and chilled? Resistant starch is a type of dietary fiber found in some carbohydrates naturally and in others like pasta, rice and potatoes, when they are cooked and chilled. Pasta salad also contains resistant starch. Potatoes and pasta, of course, are not sources of omega-3 fatty acids, however, chilled in a salad they are filling, nutritious and low glycemic.

Resistant starch is slower to digest and does not spike blood sugar levels. Because it stays in your intestines longer it helps you to feel more full. There is more good news about resistant starch! According to John La Puma, MD in his book Big Book of Culinary Medicine, "Foods rich in resistant starch appear to help you burn fat up to twenty four hours later." So red potato salads and pasta salads are fat burning foods as well as filling and nutritious!

Omega 3 sources are foods that are essential for our health in so many ways. Some of them lower blood sugar and others are fat burning foods. Foods that are rich in omega 3 fatty acids support cardiovascular health, enhance our immune systems and are nourishment for our brains. To maintain fat loss and be healthy we need to add more of the omega 3 sources to our diets. Putting them in salads is the perfect way to do it.