The best argument for eating a sardine is the one vegans use against it: fish only get their omega-3 from algae. True. And a cow only gets hers from grass. The cow eats grass, which you can't digest. The sardine eats plankton, which you couldn't even catch. The cow grazes a hillside nobody can plough. The sardine grazes open sea nobody can farm. The cow runs it through four stomachs. The sardine runs it through a sieve in its gills. Neither needs a sack of feed, a sprayer or a field of soya. The cow hands back B12, haem iron and fat filtered by her rumen. The sardine hands back EPA and DHA, the omega-3 your brain is partly built from, which your body makes from plant oil at a trickle. Whales, gannets, tuna and dolphins all live off that service. The vegan alternative is to skip the fish and grow the algae directly. The algae in the sea make their oil from sunlight. The algae in the capsule are a microbe kept in a steel fermenter in the dark and fed glucose syrup, then refined, deodorised and sealed in a shell. The sardine did the same job in the open sea, for nothing, and threw in the protein, the calcium and the vitamin D.The best argument for eating a sardine is the one vegans use against it: fish only get their omega-3 from algae. True. And a cow only gets hers from grass. The cow eats grass, which you can't digest. The sardine eats plankton, which you couldn't even catch. The cow grazes a hillside nobody can plough. The sardine grazes open sea nobody can farm. The cow runs it through four stomachs. The sardine runs it through a sieve in its gills. Neither needs a sack of feed, a sprayer or a field of soya. The cow hands back B12, haem iron and fat filtered by her rumen. The sardine hands back EPA and DHA, the omega-3 your brain is partly built from, which your body makes from plant oil at a trickle. Whales, gannets, tuna and dolphins all live off that service. The vegan alternative is to skip the fish and grow the algae directly. The algae in the sea make their oil from sunlight. The algae in the capsule are a microbe kept in a steel fermenter in the dark and fed glucose syrup, then refined, deodorised and sealed in a shell. The sardine did the same job in the open sea, for nothing, and threw in the protein, the calcium and the vitamin D. Cutting out the middleman only makes sense when the middleman is charging you.
— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) November 13, 2026
Cutting out the middleman only makes sense when the middleman is charging you.
