Omega-3 Intake Calculator: Add Up Your Week of Fish

What this page does

Fish is eaten a few times a week, not every day, so the honest way to judge omega-3 is as a weekly total spread over seven days. Enter how many portions of each fish you eat in a typical week, plus any fish oil or algae oil, and the page gives your daily average of EPA and DHA against the target for your age.
If you only want the targets, including the heart disease and triglyceride doses, the Daily Omega-3 Needs Calculator gives those on their own.

How the total is built

Daily EPA+DHA = (portions a week × EPA+DHA per portion) ÷ 7 + supplements a day

A portion is 4 oz (113 g) of cooked fish, the serving size the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses. The FDA publishes a range for each fish rather than a single figure, because fat content swings with season, diet and farm. The calculator uses the middle of each range for its headline and shows the whole range under it.

Worked example:

A 35-year-old has one 4 oz salmon fillet and two portions of canned light tuna a week:

• (1,800 + 2 × 225) ÷ 7 = 321 mg a day, 129% of the 250 mg adult target
• On the FDA’s low figures it is 214 mg and on the high ones 429, so this week could land either side of the target. A second fatty fish meal would settle it.

The trap is light tuna. A tuna sandwich every day feels like a lot of fish, but at about 225 mg a portion, seven of them carry less than one salmon fillet.

The targets

There is no US recommended intake for EPA and DHA, so the target is the 250 mg a day set for adults by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the 2010 FAO/WHO (Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization) report. Children get the top of the FAO/WHO child ranges: 150 mg under 4, 200 mg from 4 to 6, then 250. In pregnancy and breastfeeding it is 300 mg, of which at least 200 mg should be DHA.

ALA, the plant omega-3

Flaxseed, chia and walnuts carry ALA, which has its own US Adequate Intake: 1.6 g a day for men and 1.1 g for women from 14, 1.4 g in pregnancy and 1.3 g while breastfeeding, less for children. The page totals it separately because it is not a substitute: under 15% of ALA becomes EPA and under 5% becomes DHA. Whole flaxseed carries about 2.35 g a tablespoon, chia seeds 5.06 g an ounce and walnuts 2.57 g an ounce.

Supplements

A standard 1,000 mg fish oil capsule holds about 180 mg EPA and 120 mg DHA, so 300 mg of what you want. Enter the EPA plus DHA from the label, not the fish oil weight on the front. Algae oil is the vegan route and is usually 200 to 300 mg a capsule.

The FDA’s limit is 3,000 mg a day of EPA and DHA in total, with no more than 2,000 mg of it from supplements. EFSA considers up to 5,000 mg a day from supplements safe for adults. Past either, it is a dose for a doctor to set.