Why we source our Omega-3 from Marine Algae (and Not Fish or Krill)

Most omega-3 supplements on Australian shelves come from fish or krill. Primal Collective took a different route. This is the reasoning, the science, and what to look for in any omega-3 product — ours or anyone else's.

The omega-3 problem isn't really about omega-3

It's about ratio.

Our ancestral diet ran at roughly a 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. The modern Australian diet runs closer to 20:1, driven largely by industrial seed oils and grain-fed animal products. Omega-3 and omega-6 metabolites compete for the same enzymes in your body, and they have broadly opposing effects on cellular signalling — which is why the ratio matters more than the absolute number on any single label.

You can fix the ratio from both ends: reduce omega-6 intake (the bigger lever) and increase omega-3 intake (the easier lever). Most people end up doing the second through supplementation, because the food sources that actually move the needle — oily fish in particular — aren't part of most weekly shops.

So the question becomes: which omega-3 supplement.

Why ALA from plants isn't a complete answer

Omega-3 fatty acids come in four forms: ALA, EPA, DHA, and DPA. Your body uses EPA and DHA. Plants give you ALA — which has to be converted into EPA and then DHA before it does anything useful.

That conversion is notoriously inefficient. A widely cited review found seven intervention studies in which ALA from nuts and seed oils was not converted to DHA at all. Three further studies in the same review showed that micro-algae oil did produce significant increases in blood DHA.

This is the bit most "just eat walnuts and flaxseed" advice glosses over. You can absolutely eat those foods for many other good reasons. But if your goal is to raise circulating EPA and DHA — the forms your brain, heart, and eyes actually use — relying on ALA conversion is a long way around.

Which leaves marine sources.

The case against fish oil (from someone who used to recommend it)

Fish oil has three structural problems that get downplayed by the industry that sells it.

1. Bioaccumulation

Mercury, dioxins, PCBs, and microplastics concentrate as they move up the food chain. Small fish eat plankton; bigger fish eat small fish; the biggest fish — tuna, swordfish, king mackerel — sit at the top and carry the load. This is exactly why public health guidance routinely tells pregnant women to limit certain fish species. The contamination is real, measurable, and not something a fish-oil capsule magically removes unless the manufacturer is doing serious post-extraction purification (and disclosing it).

2. Oxidation

Omega-3 oils oxidise — and oxidised omega-3 isn't just useless, it's potentially counterproductive. The Global Organization for EPA and DHA recommends supplements stay under a TOTOX value of 26. Recent independent testing found more than half of supplements tested exceeded that number. A 2015 Choice investigation in Australia and New Zealand found multiple products failing to meet their stated EPA/DHA content, with oxidation a contributing factor.

The honest target is much tighter than 26. Look for a TOTOX under 10.

3. Sustainability claims that don't survive scrutiny

"Sustainably sourced" appears on a lot of fish oil packaging. It often means the brand has paid for a certification scheme run by — or heavily influenced by — the industry it's certifying. The Sydney Morning Herald has covered the push for omega-3 alternatives as krill stocks come under pressure, and Sea Shepherd has been raising the same flag for years.

And krill?

Krill oil is marketed as the premium upgrade — better bioavailability, smaller doses, naturally occurring astaxanthin. Two things to know.

First, the bioavailability claim is overstated. A 2015 controlled trial concluded that similar EPA and DHA blood levels were achieved across fish and krill oil products when matched for dose. Krill capsules typically contain less EPA and DHA per capsule than fish oil, which is why the "better bioavailability" framing matters commercially — it papers over the lower dose.

Second, krill is the foundation of the Antarctic marine food chain. Whales, seals, penguins, and dozens of fish species eat krill. Removing it at industrial scale to put in human supplements creates downstream effects that nobody fully understands yet. The standard industry response — "we only take a fraction of the biomass" — is the same argument that's preceded every fisheries collapse on record.

So we went to what fish actually eat

Fish don't manufacture EPA and DHA. They eat algae, and the omega-3 accumulates in their tissue. Cutting out the middle fish is both more efficient and dramatically cleaner.

Microalgae for supplements is grown in pharmaceutical-grade aqua-farms — closed, controlled environments with no exposure to ocean contamination. No mercury bioaccumulation, no microplastics, no PCBs, no harvesting pressure on wild ecosystems. The oil is extracted using a hexane-free process, which matters because residual solvent is a real concern in cheaper extractions.

It also means a vegan source of true EPA and DHA exists, which is genuinely useful for the meaningful share of the population — vegan, vegetarian, or just fish-averse — who otherwise have no good option.

What to look for in any omega-3 supplement

Brand-agnostic checklist. Apply it to anything on the shelf:

Stated EPA and DHA in milligrams, not total "omega-3" or total "fish oil." A 1,000 mg fish oil capsule typically contains only 180 mg EPA and 120 mg DHA — the rest is filler oil.
A published TOTOX value, ideally under 10. If a brand can't or won't share oxidation data, that tells you something.
Heavy metal testing — mercury at minimum, ideally a full panel.
Batch-level Certificates of Analysis made available on the website, not just on request.
An extraction method disclosed. Hexane-free is the standard you want.

Most products won't clear all five. That's the point of the checklist.

One note on dosing. General intake guidance from the Heart Foundation and equivalent international bodies sits around 500 mg combined EPA + DHA per day for healthy adults. Average Australian intake is estimated at roughly 160 mg per day — under a third of that. Higher intakes (1,000 mg and up) are sometimes discussed in clinical settings but should be a conversation with your GP, particularly if you're on blood thinners, since omega-3 at higher doses can affect bleeding time.

Our take

The choice to go with algae rather than fish or krill comes out of looking at the contamination data, the oxidation data, the bioavailability literature, and the ecological picture, and concluding that the source fish themselves use is the source we should use too. Every batch is third-party tested in Australia for EPA, DHA, oxidation markers, and heavy metals. The most recent results are linked on the product page alongside the full ingredient breakdown.

But the broader point stands regardless of which brand you end up choosing: ask for the data, look at the TOTOX, count the actual EPA and DHA, and treat "sustainably sourced" claims with the same skepticism you'd apply to anything else on a label.

This article is for general information and is not medical advice. If you're on medication — particularly blood thinners, diabetes medications, or statins — talk to your doctor before starting an omega-3 supplement. Individual needs vary.