Written by
on Wednesday, 03 February 2021.
Tagged: fats, fish oil, healthy cooking, healthy eating, krill, oil
This is a question I’m often asked. Especially as krill oil bounced onto the huge market of fish oil capsules with unbelievable claims such as "better absorbed" and "more powerful than fish oil". So, should you buy krill instead of fish oil despite its larger price tag? Take a look …
Krill (Euphasia species, mainly Euphasia superba) are tiny red crustaceans around 1 to 5 cm long found in the Southern Ocean around the Antarctic.
They look like small prawns (shrimp) and are the primary food for fish, whales, seals and penguins.
As fish stocks are being depleted, krill offers an alternative source of the valuable long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids including eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) that do our heart and blood so much good. Fish oil is a supplement I take regularly, so I was keen to know if krill is better or not.
The oil is extracted from krill by a cold vacuum process that protects the krill from exposure to heat, light or oxygen. Virtually all krill oil is produced by one Canadian company Neptune Technologies or Ocean Remedies and is sold on to oil encapsulator companies.
Krill has three things to recommend it:
Figures per 1,000 mg of each oil
Capsule type |
EPA mg |
DHA mg |
Sum of EPA+DHA mg |
Astaxanthin mcg |
Krill oil |
108 |
60 |
168 |
75 |
Fish oil |
180 |
120 |
300 |
nil |
Source: from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31201957
It may be - but not by much. Not enough for me to recommend krill over fish oil, although fish oil has a higher concentration of DHA and EPA than krill oil and is cheaper.
Remember that there are only a handful of studies on krill oil but thousands of studies on fish oil since the 1980s. We know a lot more about fish oil than about krill.
Its great advantage is that it’s absorbed better and you will need less to get the same effect. But then you could just as well take two super-concentrated fish oil capsules and still be ahead for money.
Another advantage is that generally krill oil capsules are smaller and easier to swallow than fish oil.
The only unknown is how long it has been sitting around in a warehouse somewhere, which is, of course, the same unknown with fish oil. At least with krill oil, thanks to the high antioxidant content, the shelf life is much longer.
Krill are a shellfish so krill oil is a potential allergen. Like fish oil, krill oil thins the blood so consult your doctor in regards to taking krill oil prior to operations.
Both fish oil and krill oil are reliable sources of omega-3s, even if the EPA + DHA dose in the krill oil is only about 60 per cent of that in the fish oil. Krill oil appears to have a health edge over fish oil because it may be more bioavailable, but it’s also more expensive and not well-studied. You can make up your own mind which you prefer to buy.
I hope this short extract from my ebook "Fish Oils & Omega-3s” will help you understand the difference between fish oil capsules and krill oil capsules. If you want to learn more about fish oils and their uses, grab yourself a copy from the Foodwatch shop. It lists and explains the most common terms, compares popular brands of capsules and reveals the key considerations in choosing the most beneficial fish oil for you. To buy your copy of the ebook, click here.
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