Benefits

Fresh Natural Fats for Incredible Appetite Stimulation and Energy
In other words the food tastes great to your fish. How do we know this? In two ways. First, watch your fish eat the food. They will be visibly enthusiastic about it and will continue to eat the food much longer than other brands. Secondly, we merely need to look at the reality of fishmeal based foods (everyone else) compared to foods using only fresh seafood as the main ingredient.

The process of making fishmeal starts with the protein being cooked and dried with natural fats removed and further processed. Both the fats and the processed protein then have preservatives added to prepare them for a long shelf life. Two things have already happened at this point. The fats have lost much of their palatability and processing has nutritionally compromised the protein. And, this is only step one!

Another factor crucial to the quality of a fish food diet is how well the fish that make up the fishmeal was taken care of. Was it iced down on the fishing boat, how long did it lay in the fish hold before making it to shore. This is a critical time for both fats and proteins. Historically fish that are targeted for fishmeal are poorly refrigerated, if at all. And bi-product can lie in vats or on the decks of boats for days. After all it’s only for animal feeds.    

Every minute that raw fish is not kept at 32 degrees F., the fat is gaining in rancidity and the proteins are breaking down. This low quality cannot be reversed. It will follow the ingredient right through to the finished product ending up in your aquarium. 

The final question is how long has this fish meal been laying in a warehouse before being used in your fish food? Six months? A year? Maybe longer? One thing for sure, it will vary greatly and you or the fish food manufacturer who purchased it will never really know the answer. That is because fishmeal is a generic, bulk ingredient that has very little value. Would you eat food made in this way? 

Eventually the processed fishmeal and fats come back off the storage shelf and are reunited when the flaked fish food is actually made. The mix is then processed again, with more preservatives added. The finished product will indeed, keep fish alive, for a time, but the natural attractant ability and genuine nourishment that only fresh ingredients can provide is long gone. 

Omega One flaked foods skip the fishmeal stage altogether and start with fresh seafood ingredients - the best available!  Cold water marine proteins like salmon, cod, black cod, halibut, herring, shrimp, and krill. We know these ingredients are fresh, because we get them directly from the fishermen. What’s more, we know the fish are taken care of because we know the fisherman who catch them. These are small boat operators that fish for 1 to 2 days at a time. The fish they catch are kept in slush ice and delivered fresh. The end result is an excellent variety of fresh seafood for our product. The difference in smell and taste of fish food made in this way compared to products made with fishmeal is huge. Just watch your fish feed, you’ll be a believer. 

Rich In Omega 3 & 6 HUFA’s For Healthy Immune Systems And Long Life
It is a well known fact that cold water marine proteins, such as salmon, halibut, black cod, and herring, are extremely rich in Omega 3 & 6 HUFA’s (highly unsaturated fatty acids). Fish need the Omega’s to build strong immune systems for disease resistance, as well as for the development of strong but pliable cell walls. Having a variety of Omega 3 & 6 HUFA’s is extremely important because, while fish can manufacture some of the Omega’s themselves they depend on their foods for the rest. For example, saltwater fish must have a strong diet of Omega 3’s, since they can manufacture the 6’s themselves. On the other hand freshwater species have a strong need for Omega 6’s in their diet. The fresh, coldwater marine proteins used by Omega One provide the best Omega profile available for the needs of all aquarium fish.

High Levels of Natural Beta-Carotene Color Enhancers in Salmon Skins
A large amount of the marine proteins used by Omega One in their flake foods come in the form of whole beautiful salmon. The skins of these salmon contain the highest level of usable, natural beta-carotenes available in the wild. Red, Yellow, Blue, and Silver beta-carotenes are all present in large quantities in the skins of these fish. Because of the chemistry and the fact that the beta-carotenes are present in the salmon skins, the color transfer from skins of the salmon to the skins of your aquarium fish is nearly 100%. This means your aquarium fish will literally burst with color in a very short time. And it’s all natural.

Revolutionary Protein Binding System
Omega One is the only dry fish food available that utilizes a protein binding system. This is a result of using undenatured proteins (fresh seafood). All other fish foods, due to their use of fishmeal, require large amounts of starch binders such as flour, potato products, rice, and other starches to hold their foods together. This is because denatured proteins, (proteins that have been processed) such as fishmeal have lost the wonderful ability to gel. This gel quality can be seen when frying a fresh hamburger or an egg. The protein, upon being cooked, gels together and stays together. 

However, like a powdered egg, fishmeal can never “stick” together again with out help. This is where the starch comes in. By using a large amount of starch, the fishmeal can again be put in a whole form to be fed to fish. “Hamburger Helper” dishes work in the same way. Large amounts of starches are cooked with the crumbled left over hamburger resulting in a dish that stays together.

There are two problems with this. One is that fish need only a small amount of starch in their diet. Unfortunately, it requires a large amount of starch to hold fishmeal-based foods together. In fact you can see that on all other fish food ingredient labels the second ingredient behind fishmeal will be some kind of starch, such as wheat flour, or ground rice. Essentially this extra starch is a filler, replacing potential high quality proteins and fats.

Omega One flake foods do not need large amounts of starch additives since the binder that holds the food together is the freshly cooked proteins themselves. The result is a high level of fresh marine proteins and fats. An amount and quality of which closely resembles what would be found in a natural aquatic environment

The other problem is that starch binders are water-soluble. This means that whatever vitamins have been added to the food begins to leach out immediately upon hitting the water. If the food is not eaten immediately there may be substantial vitamin loss.

The protein binding system of Omega One flake foods is not water-soluble. Vitamins are held in complete suspension until eaten, at which time the fish’s digestive system takes over and absorbs 100% of the vitamins in the food. This results in a tremendous benefit to the fish as well as the water quality.

In addition a protein bound flake becomes much more flexible, or willowy, in the water resulting in a much softer, more “mouth friendly” food .

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, all other existing dry aqautic foods are essentially the same, their major ingredient is fishmeal and all other major ingredients are for the purpose of holding the fishmeal together. They are easy to manufacture but nutritionally and taste compromised from the start.

By using fresh, undenatured marine proteins from the start Omega One has truly “broke the mold” on a 30 year old industry. The benefits to this new process are incredible, with new ones showing up as more and more hobbyists use the product. 

The bottom line is that simple is better, and you can’t get any better than using wholesome fresh ingredients. So don’t be misled with highly technical jargon about why one fishmeal-based food is better than the other. Ultimately it’s just splitting hairs off the same dog. Fresh is best! and always has been!