Ever since Julie got pregnant, people have been giving us a load of information. People tell us to have a completely natural birth because the medicine they give to induce you is bad for the baby. Or that we should have an NT scan to test for Downs Syndrome so we can be prepared for it. We’ve gotten so much information that it’s hard to even know what to do, so we just do as much research as possible and try to make our best educated decisions based on what we feel is best for us and our child.
One thing we heard a lot was that Julie should take Omega-3 fish oil pills because it helps the baby’s brain and heart development. After talking to a midwife at the doctor’s office where we go, we learned that it’s the DHA in the fish oil pills that is good for brain and heart development. In addition to being healthy for the baby, DHA pills are a (supposedly) good supplement that help prevent Alzheimer’s and cancer.
You can get DHA by taking fish oil pills, but be warned… there is a horrible side-effect: burping the flavor of fish. The pill doesn’t make you burp, but when you do burp, you can taste the fish. However, you can buy a DHA supplement that is not made from fish oil.
About a month ago, Julie and I started taking the fish-free DHA pills. Shortly after, I learned that the fish-burp side effect isn’t limited to the fish oil pills, because I started burping fish. This is strange considering the DHA supplement specifically says that it’s not made with any fish products.
After some research, I discovered that the DHA supplement is derived from algae, rather than fish. What I suppose happens is that you can get the DHA in non-fish form from algae, or you can get it from fish because fish eat the algae. However, why does my algae-derived pill taste like fish?
This leads me to ponder the following: Do fish tastes like fish, or do fish tastes like algae? It is possible that fish don’t taste like fish at all, but instead taste like the algae they eat, and all along we’ve just thought they tasted like fish.
A coworker brought up the quote from The Matrix:
You have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn’t figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.
Tags: advice, algae, baby, DHA, fish, fish oil, Matrix, Omega-3
I cannot stand the taste of any seafood, but fish oils and omega 3s are important for good health. Specifically it is accepted that they reduce risk of arthritis which runs in my family and scares the hell out of me since I write software for a living. So I take these pills, and occasionally burp a foul tasting burp.
A necessary evil.
Love the matrix quote.
peace | dewde