Season Sardines
I know, I know. Many of you are thinking, um ya, Megan. Why SHOULD I start eating sardines? And are ready to turn your noses up already.
Hold on! Seriously. I know for many people this is a stretch. But what you need to know is if you try them you will probably like them. Let me explain why and why you should give them a go in the first place.
K?
Let’s start with the health benefits.
Sardines are one of the highest sources of Omega 3 fatty acids you can find. Even higher than salmon. No joke. Omega 3’s are important for heart health and keeping our blood flowing among many other things. You need Omega 3’s to stay healthy and you need to get them from your food.
You also need to get Omega 6 fatty acids in your diet for the same reasons and sardines proved high levels of those as well.
Sardines are also a great source of protein. We’ve talked about that before in my post about Post Workout Protein: Why You Need It And How To Get It. Protein, of course, is extremely necessary for muscle recovery and building. Sardines are a inexpensive way to get a wonderful, high quality, healthy protein.
Sardines are also crazy high in vitamins! One serving gives you your entire daily needs of vitamin D. Trust me you want vitamin D, this stuff helps keep you from getting sick in the winter and helps you get over sickness a lot faster when you have sufficient quantities. Lack of vitamin D can also make you miserable, aches and pains, rickets, asthma among other miserable things. I usually take a fermented cod liver oil but my kids hate the stuff and love sardines, so they stick with the sardines. They love making little sushi rolls out of them with nori for an after school snack.
A couple really cool things about eating sardines over larger, more popular fish is they are low in contaminates like mercury because they are the bottom of the food chain, they just don’t ingest that yucky stuff AND they are sustainably harvested.
Now that we have established why you need to eat these little guys, you are likely wondering how you should serve them to yourself and your family to get them to like them. If you like fish already I don’t think you will have a problem, they are simply delicious. They are fairly high in sodium and we all know salt is the best way to bring out flavor and boy does it. They really aren’t ‘fishy’ either, at least I don’t think so.
The first time I fed them to my family I put them on pizza because that is how I had eaten them before. So amazing. It’s our favorite pizza and my kids always ask for it.
I adore putting them on a salad for my lunch, with some dark leafy greens and tomatoes, shredded beets, maybe some cucumber. I just throw everything in and the sardines just bring out the flavor of everything.
They are fabulous in a spaghetti sauce over pasta or on crackers.
If you don’t like the canned ones, you can also get fresh ones in certain areas and just cook them up like any other fish, smoke them, grill them, pan fry them. Doesn’t matter really, I just want to encourage you to try something new, healthy and delicious!
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