These Tiny Seeds Beat Salmon for Omega-3 — Here’s How to Eat Them

Chia seeds have become one of those small pantry foods with a surprisingly large nutrition story behind them. The headline claim is striking: gram for gram or serving for serving, they can provide more omega-3 than salmon. But the detail that matters is the type of omega-3 they contain.

Chia seeds are rich in alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA, a plant-based omega-3. Salmon is rich in EPA and DHA, the long-chain omega-3s found in fish and seafood. The National Institutes of Health explains that ALA is found mainly in plant sources, while EPA and DHA come mainly from fish and other seafood, so chia seeds are impressive, but they do not replace salmon in exactly the same way.