There was a time when I was working that I came to be known as Mr Sardine because I used to take a sardine sandwich cut into four that I consumed over the working day (I used to work 6:00 to 16:00 four days a week to avoid traffic). I buy only from farms where there is free roaming grazing. Canned fish I buy only in water. I seem to be doing OK. I am envious that you have met Mike Eades that would be the privilege on my life.
At one time (not so long ago) my dermatologist suggested ketoconazole for a "rash" exactly as you have described. It did better but not gone. LIke many, I lost interest smear the stuff every night and eventually stopped. However, near same time I started Carlson fish oil (pitched by Eades) tsp/x2/day. Doing just fine. n=1 Not a marine foodie.
Interesting, thanks, Keith. I got an email from a subscriber in response to this post suggesting I need to see a dermatologist... Sadly physicians in general are pretty dreadful at chronic diseases. Which is why we have a pandemic of them.
Pass. It's being phased out due to safety/lack of efficacy. I've got Lamisil, which contains terbinafine, which is safer and I already know doesn't help. :)
Choi, F. D., Juhasz, M. L. W., & Atanaskova Mesinkovska, N. (2019). Topical Ketoconazole: A Systematic Review of Current Dermatological Applications and Future Developments. Journal of Dermatological Treatment, 30(8), 760–771. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546634.2019.1573309
I come from an area the raises beef. If beef is pure grass fed, you can see the difference, the fat tends to be more yellow and is a different texture.
It takes twice as long to raise beef on grass vs the usual feed - thus real grass fed is about twice as expensive to raise - and it sells for about 2x the price.
Would people lie to get twice the money out of the sale? Sadly yes. And it is harder to be virtuous when living in the third world where a lot of our beef comes from.
FWIW, after eating any significant amount of farmed fish, I gain weight (and have a somewhat lower morning body temperature) over the next couple of days. Mirrors my response to seed oils. And I only recently lost my "gain weight regardless of carbs" tendencies I'd been fighting for nearly 2 decades with (an awful lot of) fasting. Since I was zero-carb for most of that, I have to suspect American chicken and pork are/were major contributors. Love that pork belly. No more for me.
But I have no issue, so far, with wild-caught fish. Which is nice. And, also FWIW, I no longer have an issue with carbohydrates--I'm not saying they're optimal for long-term health, but they don't move the needle on the scale. In the absence of significant linoleic acid. Okay, it's a digital scale, but....
Long story wrt how that all happened. Short version: zero carb for years, then very low LA and extended/intense exercise (distance running) every few days for a few months; fat melted off faster than I'd have expected from fasting even though I ate every day & did not restrict calories at all; followed by extreme low fat "carbosis" for three weeks--complications ensued--but I'm now around 98.6 when I wake up in the morning and apparently weight stable regardless of pigging out (in a non-pork kind of way). I'm fine with eating carbs wrt weight gain, though they cause other issues, mainly reflux. So far. Not going into all that, but fwiw I have read all of Peter's Hyperlipid posts & most comments. And anyway it was a combo of stunt & intellectual exercise; I'm nearly always eating only meat these days. Plus some supplemental stearic acid, but again that's mostly for fun.
(I do acknowledge that there may be several other factors involved than linoleic acid per se; my mental models are and always shall be forever in flux, unless they someday aren't.)
Be interesting to be able to track down exactly what the "fish farmers" fed any fish they subsequently put up for sale. In the absence of that info, I'm no longer eating any of the farmed stuff. Especially if it has dyes in it...heh.
Great post, Tucker. Been avoiding PUFA for going on 4 years now (thanks largely to you, Dr. Eades and Dr. Knobbe). Haven't paid much mind to the possibility of and n-3 deficiency. Fascinating. Share a few of the symptoms, though. Have to increase my fish intake and see what happens.
From personal experience, I vaguely disagree: even eating wild salmon daily, I got sunburn back (after it went away on a low-PUFA diet), felt vaguely more inflamed/uncomfortable.. I also seem to remember farmed salmon being about 1:1 on o3 and o6, though I don't recall the study now. It had pictures of salmon fillets, maybe even on your blog?
In addition, irrespective of their omega balance, farmed (aka nearly all) Atlantic salmon are raised in disgusting conditions, much worse than pretty much any other mass meat production method.
I have also read that "wild caught" salmon is often a scam, that they released farmed salmon and then re catch them to mark as "wild caught."
Intriguingly, I got dry skin after going on a low-fat (<1%) rice based diet for a month recently. Cleared up as soon as I went back on the cream diet.
edit: found the study, yep 1:1 o3:o6 in farmed norwegian salmon
I live in San Antonio. It's basically impossible to find anything labeled as wild-caught salmon outside a grocery store (typically I get it from Sam's Club or sometimes HEB). The funny thing is, the color isn't right on farmed fish & it's not hard to tell--20 years in Alaska might influence my take on that, but it seems to me that the difference isn't subtle.
My cats live mostly on ground beef and canned wild-caught salmon (both of which are cheaper than canned "cat food"), except when they can get cooked brisket, which is for some reason their favorite food. I figure the larger companies in the canned-fish market are probably fairly reliable. But as for salmon in restaurants? Clearly 100% farmed, at least as far as I've seen. I look at it as corn oil (and, okay, also some sunflower oil) and dye in the shape of a fish. I could easily be completely wrong, but I see no benefit to assuming such. I certainly react to it as if it were what I think it is.
Even shrimp are generally farmed around here. And guess what? I react the same way to farmed shrimp. Not so much to snapper & bass & other fish I catch myself. Or other fish I buy directly from those who caught it, or from a couple of local sources I trust more than others.
Interesting cause shrimp are super lean, aren't they? The one entry I randomly checked in the USDA database (https://foods.exfatloss.com/food/174210) has almost as much o6 as o3, which I suppose is close to the bad farmed salmon result from that study, it's just the overall fat content of shrimp is tiny (1% fat of weight). But could be enough, I suppose?
Or maybe something else is messed up with farmed seafood, I wouldn't be surprised. Apparently those salmon farms are disease hotspots like crazy, cause the salmon swim in their own shit and can't get away to cleaner waters.
I've read that shrimp are very lean, yes. But if farmed fish have more fat...I dunno. It's always interesting to me that there's so much we don't know about the food we eat.
I actually had a shrimp cocktail & a couple of beers in the midst of my low-fat "carbosis" experiment. Gained weight, though I'd been expecting not to do so...I have a vague notion that FGF21 production by the liver might be downregulated in the context of higher protein intake (also that this might be causal wrt to reduced alcohol tolerance by many on a low carb diet), which might be relevant, but I do think there's likely some other factor. Could be LA. Could be ?????.
Ha! I suspect you don't drink much beer? But anyway, no, beer was not an issue on any other day. In fact roughly half (possibly .666666667) of my justification for a low-fat diet was that beer would fit right in, so I had some on most days. Used to brew my own; gave it up long ago bc of carbs. Apparently no longer an issue for me, though I do prefer ketosis to not-ketosis in general. Also consumed sugary sodas even though I very much disliked them, thinking fructose in the context of "carbosis" might be a weight loss drug, again via FGF21. Results came in with a resounding "maybe" on that.
Also, my oral temp dropped the day after the shrimp & took a couple of days to recover. Based on a combination of Peter's Hyperlipid Protons (should be electrons?) notions & stuff Brad Marshall's published, plus a paper I found about post-prandial semi-LIFO fat burning, plus another by Jeff Volek et al, it makes sense that LA would be preferentially oxidized for a bit after consumption. And in general, also.
Actually I wonder about Tucker's suggestion above that I might be especially susceptible to LA consumption. Seems a better fit to me that I might be especially likely to oxidize it in the near future afterward, if anything. But it'd be difficult to find out for sure AFAIK.
There was a time when I was working that I came to be known as Mr Sardine because I used to take a sardine sandwich cut into four that I consumed over the working day (I used to work 6:00 to 16:00 four days a week to avoid traffic). I buy only from farms where there is free roaming grazing. Canned fish I buy only in water. I seem to be doing OK. I am envious that you have met Mike Eades that would be the privilege on my life.
He and his wife are super-nice people.
I have been reading his stuff for years and that is the impression I get.
At one time (not so long ago) my dermatologist suggested ketoconazole for a "rash" exactly as you have described. It did better but not gone. LIke many, I lost interest smear the stuff every night and eventually stopped. However, near same time I started Carlson fish oil (pitched by Eades) tsp/x2/day. Doing just fine. n=1 Not a marine foodie.
Interesting, thanks, Keith. I got an email from a subscriber in response to this post suggesting I need to see a dermatologist... Sadly physicians in general are pretty dreadful at chronic diseases. Which is why we have a pandemic of them.
If a "natural" way does not work, then maybe ketoconazole cream. However, that requires a Rx.
Pass. It's being phased out due to safety/lack of efficacy. I've got Lamisil, which contains terbinafine, which is safer and I already know doesn't help. :)
Choi, F. D., Juhasz, M. L. W., & Atanaskova Mesinkovska, N. (2019). Topical Ketoconazole: A Systematic Review of Current Dermatological Applications and Future Developments. Journal of Dermatological Treatment, 30(8), 760–771. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546634.2019.1573309
I come from an area the raises beef. If beef is pure grass fed, you can see the difference, the fat tends to be more yellow and is a different texture.
It takes twice as long to raise beef on grass vs the usual feed - thus real grass fed is about twice as expensive to raise - and it sells for about 2x the price.
Would people lie to get twice the money out of the sale? Sadly yes. And it is harder to be virtuous when living in the third world where a lot of our beef comes from.
FWIW, after eating any significant amount of farmed fish, I gain weight (and have a somewhat lower morning body temperature) over the next couple of days. Mirrors my response to seed oils. And I only recently lost my "gain weight regardless of carbs" tendencies I'd been fighting for nearly 2 decades with (an awful lot of) fasting. Since I was zero-carb for most of that, I have to suspect American chicken and pork are/were major contributors. Love that pork belly. No more for me.
But I have no issue, so far, with wild-caught fish. Which is nice. And, also FWIW, I no longer have an issue with carbohydrates--I'm not saying they're optimal for long-term health, but they don't move the needle on the scale. In the absence of significant linoleic acid. Okay, it's a digital scale, but....
Long story wrt how that all happened. Short version: zero carb for years, then very low LA and extended/intense exercise (distance running) every few days for a few months; fat melted off faster than I'd have expected from fasting even though I ate every day & did not restrict calories at all; followed by extreme low fat "carbosis" for three weeks--complications ensued--but I'm now around 98.6 when I wake up in the morning and apparently weight stable regardless of pigging out (in a non-pork kind of way). I'm fine with eating carbs wrt weight gain, though they cause other issues, mainly reflux. So far. Not going into all that, but fwiw I have read all of Peter's Hyperlipid posts & most comments. And anyway it was a combo of stunt & intellectual exercise; I'm nearly always eating only meat these days. Plus some supplemental stearic acid, but again that's mostly for fun.
(I do acknowledge that there may be several other factors involved than linoleic acid per se; my mental models are and always shall be forever in flux, unless they someday aren't.)
Be interesting to be able to track down exactly what the "fish farmers" fed any fish they subsequently put up for sale. In the absence of that info, I'm no longer eating any of the farmed stuff. Especially if it has dyes in it...heh.
Check out this 2022 study on farmed salmon vs. wild caught:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fsn3.2911
Your suspicion seems right, the feed has gotten worse and worse over time
Seems likely. Also seems likely it's worse in the US than elsewhere. Kind of a pattern.
This is Norwegian ("Atlantic") salmon. Apparently, the Norwegians have captured nearly the entire "Atlantic salmon" market.
Great post, Tucker. Been avoiding PUFA for going on 4 years now (thanks largely to you, Dr. Eades and Dr. Knobbe). Haven't paid much mind to the possibility of and n-3 deficiency. Fascinating. Share a few of the symptoms, though. Have to increase my fish intake and see what happens.
From personal experience, I vaguely disagree: even eating wild salmon daily, I got sunburn back (after it went away on a low-PUFA diet), felt vaguely more inflamed/uncomfortable.. I also seem to remember farmed salmon being about 1:1 on o3 and o6, though I don't recall the study now. It had pictures of salmon fillets, maybe even on your blog?
In addition, irrespective of their omega balance, farmed (aka nearly all) Atlantic salmon are raised in disgusting conditions, much worse than pretty much any other mass meat production method.
I have also read that "wild caught" salmon is often a scam, that they released farmed salmon and then re catch them to mark as "wild caught."
Intriguingly, I got dry skin after going on a low-fat (<1%) rice based diet for a month recently. Cleared up as soon as I went back on the cream diet.
edit: found the study, yep 1:1 o3:o6 in farmed norwegian salmon
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fsn3.2911
Very interesting about the credibility of grocery stores (better) vs restaurants (obviously not better) wrt farmed vs fresh salmon. I didn't read the whole thing, but did find an article at https://time.com/4089958/wild-salmon-fish-fraud/ and the source at https://usa.oceana.org/reports/oceana-reveals-mislabeling-americas-favorite-fish-salmon/
I live in San Antonio. It's basically impossible to find anything labeled as wild-caught salmon outside a grocery store (typically I get it from Sam's Club or sometimes HEB). The funny thing is, the color isn't right on farmed fish & it's not hard to tell--20 years in Alaska might influence my take on that, but it seems to me that the difference isn't subtle.
My cats live mostly on ground beef and canned wild-caught salmon (both of which are cheaper than canned "cat food"), except when they can get cooked brisket, which is for some reason their favorite food. I figure the larger companies in the canned-fish market are probably fairly reliable. But as for salmon in restaurants? Clearly 100% farmed, at least as far as I've seen. I look at it as corn oil (and, okay, also some sunflower oil) and dye in the shape of a fish. I could easily be completely wrong, but I see no benefit to assuming such. I certainly react to it as if it were what I think it is.
Even shrimp are generally farmed around here. And guess what? I react the same way to farmed shrimp. Not so much to snapper & bass & other fish I catch myself. Or other fish I buy directly from those who caught it, or from a couple of local sources I trust more than others.
Very interesting. Sounds like you are very susceptible to LA intake. My wife and Matt Quinn share that trait.
Interesting cause shrimp are super lean, aren't they? The one entry I randomly checked in the USDA database (https://foods.exfatloss.com/food/174210) has almost as much o6 as o3, which I suppose is close to the bad farmed salmon result from that study, it's just the overall fat content of shrimp is tiny (1% fat of weight). But could be enough, I suppose?
Or maybe something else is messed up with farmed seafood, I wouldn't be surprised. Apparently those salmon farms are disease hotspots like crazy, cause the salmon swim in their own shit and can't get away to cleaner waters.
I've read that shrimp are very lean, yes. But if farmed fish have more fat...I dunno. It's always interesting to me that there's so much we don't know about the food we eat.
I actually had a shrimp cocktail & a couple of beers in the midst of my low-fat "carbosis" experiment. Gained weight, though I'd been expecting not to do so...I have a vague notion that FGF21 production by the liver might be downregulated in the context of higher protein intake (also that this might be causal wrt to reduced alcohol tolerance by many on a low carb diet), which might be relevant, but I do think there's likely some other factor. Could be LA. Could be ?????.
Could be beer too? Might increase water retention or something..
Ha! I suspect you don't drink much beer? But anyway, no, beer was not an issue on any other day. In fact roughly half (possibly .666666667) of my justification for a low-fat diet was that beer would fit right in, so I had some on most days. Used to brew my own; gave it up long ago bc of carbs. Apparently no longer an issue for me, though I do prefer ketosis to not-ketosis in general. Also consumed sugary sodas even though I very much disliked them, thinking fructose in the context of "carbosis" might be a weight loss drug, again via FGF21. Results came in with a resounding "maybe" on that.
Also, my oral temp dropped the day after the shrimp & took a couple of days to recover. Based on a combination of Peter's Hyperlipid Protons (should be electrons?) notions & stuff Brad Marshall's published, plus a paper I found about post-prandial semi-LIFO fat burning, plus another by Jeff Volek et al, it makes sense that LA would be preferentially oxidized for a bit after consumption. And in general, also.
Actually I wonder about Tucker's suggestion above that I might be especially susceptible to LA consumption. Seems a better fit to me that I might be especially likely to oxidize it in the near future afterward, if anything. But it'd be difficult to find out for sure AFAIK.