{"id":716,"date":"2009-03-30T11:04:11","date_gmt":"2009-03-30T15:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=716"},"modified":"2009-03-30T11:04:11","modified_gmt":"2009-03-30T15:04:11","slug":"omega-3s-might-reduce-methane-emissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2009\/03\/30\/omega-3s-might-reduce-methane-emissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Omega-3&#8217;s might reduce methane &#8217;emissions&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/6\/69\/Friesian-Holstein.jpg\/250px-Friesian-Holstein.jpg\"><span style=\"color: #000000\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft img-fluid\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/6\/69\/Friesian-Holstein.jpg\/250px-Friesian-Holstein.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"175\"><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #000000\">This just in: Omega-3 fatty acids are healthy not just for you, but may also be good for the environment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">We all read about the beneficial effects of omega-3 fatty acids, found most commonly in fish oils in our diets. They buffer against cancer, reduce the risk of cardiac disease and may also improve brain and immune function. \u00a0But in a presentation at the meeting of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sgm.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Society for General Microbiology<\/a> in Harrogate, UK today, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucd.ie\/bioenvsci\/researchfundedstaff.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lorraine Lillis<\/a> of University College Dublin <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000\">and colleagues <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000\">report a potential side effect in cows: Feeding them fish oil seems to reduce the amount of methane in their burps and farts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Most people snicker at the statistic, but it\u2019s true. According to a <a href=\"http:\/\/epa.gov\/climatechange\/emissions\/downloads09\/07Agriculture.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2007 EPA estimate<\/a>, at least 24 percent of methane emissions in the U.S. come from livestock flatulence. Livestock such as cows, goats, sheep and other ruminants \u2013 animals that have several stomachs and regurgitate food to chew it as cud \u2013 digest food in part by fermentation, which produces the greenhouse gas methane.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Lillis found that a diet that included 2 percent fish oil reduced the number of methane-producing bacteria in the cows\u2019 guts. This isn\u2019t a direct measure of methane levels in the cows\u2019 \u201cemissions,\u201d but fewer methanogens should produce less methane.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The caveat here is that the experiment was done in only three cows. So if you have an organic farm, don\u2019t run out and buy a truckload of expensive fish oil to feed to your free-range goats.\u00a0 Still, the idea holds promise and should be the subject of more study.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This just in: Omega-3 fatty acids are healthy not just for you, but may also be good for the environment. We all read about the beneficial effects of omega-3 fatty acids, found most commonly in fish oils in our diets. They buffer against cancer, reduce the risk of cardiac disease and may also improve brain and immune function. \u00a0But in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2],"tags":[110,60,178,194,195],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation","category-research","tag-agriculture","tag-climate-change","tag-greenhouse-gases","tag-methane","tag-omega-3-fatty-acids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}