For the past few months, I have become interested in a dietary supplement called DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), which is a type of Omega 3 fatty acid. Vegetarians / vegans get told all the time to take flaxseed oil for Omega 3, but flaxseed oil is high in a different type of Omega 3, alpha-linolenic acid, which can convert to DHA in the body, but not especially efficiently.
Fish oil is high in DHA, although as a non-animal eater, this is not much use to me - so I recently went on a hunt for a vegan DHA supplement available in Australia. For a while it became a bit of an obsession for me.
There are many available in the US, but the only vegan DHA supplement that I could find in health food shops or Australian websites is Udo's DHA oil. The problem with Udo's is that it is algae-derived DHA oil added to other types of oil, so the recommended dose is a tablespoon for 100mg of DHA. Apart from being a lot of fat (albeit good fat) it also means a 250ml bottle doesn't last long. Supplements available overseas provide at least twice as much DHA in a single capsule or drop. (I considered shipping supplements over from the US, but the shipping costs and potential Customs hassles put me off.)
Anyway, my husband was purchasing our dog food online (www.veganpet.com.au) and it turns out, our dog food supplier imports vegan DHA supplements for humans! I scour the net for an Australian source of vegan DHA, and I accidently come across the answer months later when buying dog food!
