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Project Information
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Title: Compare the amount of omega-3 found in eggs, fish and supplements to the amount claimed to be in each product.
Subject: Medicine and Health
Subcategory: Preventive Medicine / Biochemistry
Grade level: Elementary School - Grades 4-6
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Experimental
Cost: Medium
Awards: 2nd Place, Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair ($50)
Affiliation: Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair
Year: 2013
Materials and Techniques: Regular eggs, omega-3 eggs, atlantic salmon, Udo's oil, flax seed oil, round bass and fillet, smelt, gas chromatograph, centrifuge, vortex, boron trichloride, hexane, methane, chloroform
Description: The purpose of my project is to:
Measure the amount of omega-3 found in eggs, fish and supplements.
Compare the amount of omega-3 found in eggs and supplements to the amount claimed to be in each product.
Compare the amounts of omega 3 in cold water fish versus warm water fish.
Compare the amount of omega-3 found in regular eggs versus omega-3 enriched eggs.
Compare the amount of omega-3 in fish based and plant based supplements.
Determine the type of omega-3 found in each product - DHA/EPA versus ALA.
Link: http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2013/gupta13s
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Short Background
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Omega-3 fatty acid
Omega-3 fatty acids refer to a group of three fats called ALA (found in plant oils), EPA, and DHA (both commonly found in marine oils). Common sources of animal omega-3 EPA and DHA fatty acids include fish oils, algal oil, egg oil, squid oils, krill oil and some plant oils contain the omega 3 ALA fatty acid such as seabuckthorn seed and berry oils, flaxseed oil, Sacha Inchi oil, Echium oil, and hemp oil.
Omega-3 fatty acids are vital for normal metabolism but some of the potential health benefits of supplementation are controversial. Omega-3s are considered essential fatty acids, meaning that they cannot be synthesized by the human body -except that mammals have a limited ability, when the diet includes the shorter-chained omega-3 fatty acid ALA, to form the more important long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and then from EPA, the most crucial, DHA with even greater inefficiency. The ability to make the longer-chained omega-3 fatty acids from ALA may also be impaired in aging. In foods exposed to air, unsaturated fatty acids are vulnerable to oxidation and rancidity. Fish are much more efficient than mammals at converting the ALA to the EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids
Grams of omega-3 per 3oz (85g) serving
| Common name |
grams omega-3 |
| Herring, sardines |
1.3–2 |
| Mackerel: Spanish, Atlantic, Pacific |
1.1–1.7 |
| Salmon |
1.1–1.9 |
| Halibut |
0.60–1.12 |
| Tuna |
0.21–1.1 |
| Swordfish |
0.97 |
| Greenshell/lipped mussels |
0.95 |
| Tilefish |
0.9 |
| Tuna (canned, light) |
0.17–0.24 |
| Pollock |
0.45 |
| Cod |
0.15–0.24 |
| Catfish |
0.22–0.3 |
| Flounder |
0.48 |
| Grouper |
0.23 |
| Mahi mahi |
0.13 |
| Orange roughy |
0.028 |
| Red snapper |
0.29 |
| Shark |
0.83 |
| King mackerel |
0.36 |
| Hoki (blue grenadier) |
0.41 |
| Gemfish |
0.40 |
| Blue eye cod |
0.31 |
| Sydney rock oysters |
0.30 |
| Tuna, canned |
0.23 |
| Snapper |
0.22 |
| Eggs, large regular |
0.109 |
| Strawberry or Kiwifruit |
0.10-0.20 |
| Broccoli |
0.10-0.20 |
| Barramundi, saltwater |
0.100 |
| Giant tiger prawn |
0.100 |
| Lean red meat |
0.031 |
| Turkey |
0.030 |
| Cereals, rice, pasta, etc. |
0.00 |
| Fruit |
0.00 |
| Milk, regular |
0.00 |
| Bread, regular |
0.00 |
| Vegetables |
0.00 |
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid
Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)
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