Which food pops into your mind when you read each of the following words?

Omega-3
Zinc
Vitamin C
Iron

My guess is the answers to the first three would have been in order: fish, oysters and oranges (or kiwifruit). What about iron? Did you say beef or lamb? I would have too until recently when I did some work for Aquaculture NZ and discovered that New Zealand’s Greenshell Mussels have three times more iron than beef.

Just five Greenshell mussels provide as much iron as eating a man-sized 300 grams of rump steak. This is fantastic news for the less carnivorous of us. Five Greenshell Mussels provides

Why does New Zealand King (or Chinook) salmon have twice the omega-3‘s of Atlantic salmon? It’s all because of the rivers.

If you have to swim a long way up an icy river you need plenty of fat to fuel your journey. If the trip is short, you don’t need so much fat. It’s the fat where you find all the omega-3′s. NZ King (Chinook) salmon is not native to New Zealand. It’s native home is the Pacific north-west coast of America and far north-eastern Russia. Here, the rivers are long compared to the relatively shorter rivers on the east coast of America where Atlantic salmon originates.

In the 1900′s both Atlantic and Chinook salmon were brought into New Zealand but only the Chinook survived. As Grant Rosewarne, CEO of Regal Salmon said, “If we could have farmed Atlantic salmon we would have. It’s much easier.”

It’s called the no. 8 wire trait – the Kiwi knack for ingenuity.

Hi, this week I am away in Nelson situated at the very top of the south island of New Zealand. I’m a guest speaker at an Aquaculture conference and my presentation will be about the benefits of Omega 3 in one’s diet, and ways to promote it’s health benefits. It’s been wonderful here so far, am thoroughly enjoying being back in the heartland of New Zealand, even if it is only for a week. I thought I’d post a few of my powerpoint slides here to give you a little taste of what it is I am going to be talking about.

By the way, if ever there was an idyllic place to grow up as a kid, two of the pics here show that place: Matauri Bay in another (northern) part of New Zealand, sometimes called “The Winterless North”, with views out over the Cavalli Islands … my husbands home for the first six years of his life!

In an attempt to boost my body’s anti-inflammatory processes I have been eating more fish, especially salmon and the most delicious smoked trout from my local deli. It shouldn’t take a sprained foot to make me eat more fish. I know I should eat a couple of meals of oily fish each week to get the recommended 500mg of omega-3 fats a day but I have to admit that most of the time my seafood repertoire is limited to canned tuna with tomatoes for lunch.

Like all good Kiwi’s I have been watching the bone-jarring battle for the World Rugby Cup. Those boys could sure do with a few anti-inflammatory foods after a game. I hope they are eating plenty of New Zealand’s fantastic seafood – mostly because it tastes great but also because it’s packed with protein, nutrients and anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats.  Just one 150 gram portion of NZ King Salmon provides 2500mg -  enough omega-3′s to last a whole week.