Review: Stronger Faster Healthier Fish Oil
Sometime last month I posted a quickie taste test after receiving my order from Stronger Faster Healthier. I was going to wait a full 30 days before dropping a review but at this point I’ve made my decision, so why wait?
First, I’ve been regularly taking fish oil as a supplement to my nutrition for well over 4 years. The quality of the products have progressively gotten better and better, first starting with the budget bottles from the grocery store and graduating slowly to the last brand I used, Metagenics, which I could only get through a medical practitioner, a chiropractor in my case. The quality of the Metagenics product is very high, so this review can’t/won’t contain any epiphanies. The short of it is, if you’re using a low quality fish oil, stop wasting your money. Step up to something higher in quality and you’ll notice significant differences in your overall health and well-being.
That said, the rest of this review is focused on practicality: bang-for-the-buck and convenience.
Since I’m comparing my experience to another product, it’s fair to have some details of that product.
Serving Size: 2 Softgels
Servings/Container: 60
Price: $48
Price/Serving: $0.80
Calories: 20
Calories from fat: 18
Total Fat: 2g
Cholesterol: 5mg
Natural Marine Lipid Concentrate: 2.8g
EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid): 860mg
DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid): 580mg
Other Omega-3 Fatty Acids: 80mg
Other Ingredients: Natural marine lipid concentrate [fish (sardine, anchovy, and mackerel)], Gelatin, Glycerin, purified water, natural lemon flavor, natural tocopherols, rosemary, ascorbyl palmitate, Contains: fish (sardine, anchovy, and mackerel).
And for SFH:
Serving Size: 2 tsp.
Servings/Container: 30
Price: $38 (not including shipping or discounts available on-line)
Price/Serving: $1.20
Calories from fat: 78
Total Fat: 8.7g
Cholesterol: 12mg
EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid): 1625 - 1900mg
DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid): 1525 - 1700mg
Other Omega-3 Fatty Acids: 500 - 900mg
Average Omega-3: 4000mg
Other Ingredients: vitamin E, rosemary extract, natural flavoring
That’s a mouthful. Here’s what I’m looking at though:
It would take 3 capsules of the MG product to match the amount of Omega-3 available in SFH’s product. That changes the servings per container to 40 and brings the cost per serving up to $1.20, matching SFH’s. That bottle than provides 10 more servings than SFH, which is reflected in the purchase price. No real savings on either side. SFH offers some discount codes in various places on-line and through partnerships with friendly folks all over the place, so it would not be difficult to sway the cost factor in their direction.
Since convenience plays a factor for me, but is purely subjective, take the following with a grain of salt:
MG serves up their product in a large-ish softgel. SFH is straight liquid. The liquid has it’s downsides - it’s perishable (more so than the softgels), it’s not super pleasant to drink straight up (it’s an oil, so it’s a little weird for me), and I’ll be damed if I can serve some up without making a mess. The flip side is that the pills are large and not super easy to get down; the oil they provide isn’t as quickly absorbed as the liquid; MG products aren’t as readily available as you can ONLY purchase them through your medical provider, and you hope they sell the specific label you are looking for.
Those things taken together, and considering I’ll be relocating to another state and don’t want to have to hunt down the MG product, I’m sticking with SFH. The product is top-notch, it’s easy to find, and the liquid form provides some level of enhanced absorption qualities. If you can’t choke the oil, mix it into a smoothie or a salad dressing and you’re good to go. That’s a leg up over the capsules in my opinion as well.
For what it’s worth, here are my flavor reviews for the SFH product:
Chocolate - good, easy to get down
Everything else ranged from “meh” to “oh dear god”. The vanilla was my least favorite, and tangerine was the top of the not-so-bad list. Here’s hoping they work on the flavoring formula’s a bit, but it’s really promising. The fact that there are so many options to begin with is a great selling point for many.
For more info on either product, check out the links above.
- 04.28.11
