Fish oil enrichments

An increasing amount of evidence suggests that omega-3 fatty acids have a number of positive nutritional benefits in the human body (cardioprotective effect, prevention of inflammatory and various neurological diseases etc.). Increased attention from the media on these issues has lead to an increased consumer knowledge about omega-3 fatty acids, which in turn has lead to a growing intake of fish oil capsules. An alternative way of increasing the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids could be by adding fish oil to foods. Recently, several fish oil enriched foods have been launched in other European countries. This is not the case in Denmark. This may be due to different reasons. At the consumer side a barrier could be a lack of confidence in the taste of the product. In the food industry a barrier could be the uncertain situation w.r.t. health claims as well as problems related to the susceptibility of fish oil enriched foods to lipid oxidation. Finally, more studies are needed to determine whether the bioavailability of omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil enriched foods is similar to that of fish oil capsules.