Many of us are aware of the importance of the essential fatty acids – Omega 3 specifically – which is essential for brain development. The supplement market has been flooded with supplements containing essential fats. This has been incredibly useful especially if you are the parent of a fussy eater and you realize your child is not eating their oily fish. For some of us, we use supplementation of the essential fats as an insurance policy – just in case my child doesn’t get enough. And the rest of us are just totally confused and wondering which supplement of the 100’s out there is best and do we really need to spare this expense. No expense is too great when it comes to your child but it would be worth knowing firstly if you are giving the right supplement and secondly if your child really needs the supplement.
It is important to understand that essential fats are called essential because your child’s body is not able to make them and so they need to take them in through their diet. As they are fats, they are stored, so your child might have a day of eating a variety of foods that contain essential fats and then for a few days won’t touch these foods again. This is the reason why we can have supplements that are taken only once a week. So how much should my child be having between the ages of 2 – 14 years old? If you are hoping to provide the essential fat requirements from your child’s food then your child will need to eat: Fatty fish like salmon, tuna, sardines, mackerel etc twice a week (serving size as big as their palm. In addition you should use oils, like canola oil, pumpkin seed oil, flaxseed and sunflower oil that contain significant amounts of essential fats, on a daily basis. Include 1ml per year of age. Teaching your children to eat nuts and seeds, like almonds, pumpkin, flax and sesame seeds with increase their intake of essential fats. There are some other things you need to know to maximize your child’s essential fats for example: Good fats compete with bad fats, so it’s important to minimize the intake of trans fats and cholesterol (animal fat) while consuming enough good fats. Also, good fats raise your HDL or “good cholesterol”. One of the jobs of this High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) or “good cholesterol” is to grab your bad cholesterol, LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein), and escort it to the liver where it is broken down and excreted. In other words, these good fats attack some of the damage already done by the bad fats. This is very important in an age when so many children are struggling to get their cholesterol down, and fight obesity.
Food Tips:
High heat, light, and oxygen destroy EFAs, so when consuming foods for their EFA content, try to avoid cooked or heated forms. For example, raw nuts are a better source than roasted nuts. Don’t use flaxseed oil for cooking, and never re-use any type of oil. Replace hydrogenated fats (like margarine), cholesterol-based fats (butter/dairy products), and poly-saturated fats (common cooking oils) with healthy EFA-based fats when possible. For example, instead of margarine or butter on your warm (not hot) vegetables, use flaxseed and/or extra virgin olive oils with salt. (This tastes similar to margarine, as margarine is just hydrogenated oil with salt.) Sprinkling flaxseed meal on vegetables adds a slightly nutty taste. Whole flaxseeds are usually passed through the intestine, absorbing water only and not yielding much oil. In many recipes calling for vegetable margarine, replacing the margarine with half as much virgin olive oil, and a very small pinch of extra salt, often yields similar results. Adding flaxseed and/or virgin olive oil to salads instead of supermarket salad oil is another healthy change. Replace oily snack foods, like potato chips and corn chips, with nuts and seeds. Extra virgin olive oil or grapeseed oil are best to use for cooking oil, as they withstand high heat well.
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