CANBERRA, Australia (Xinhua) — Traditionally, the most effective way to boost one’s consumption of heart-protecting omega-3 acids was to consume two servings of fish per week, but Australian scientists have come up with a very Australian way to increase omega-3 intake — with lamb.

Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have managed to combine one of Australia’s greatest past times — eating lamb — with the added benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in a development they say could improve the health of Australians.

“It comes down to Australians do not consume enough of the long-chain omega-3 oils, these are the health-benefiting oils,” CSIRO researcher Peter Nichols told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.

“(Australians) do consume a lot of red meat, lamb is pretty high there, so it’s an alternate way to get the long-chain omega-3s into the Australian diet.”

Lamb is one of Australia’s most popular red meats, with citizens even encouraged to consume the meat on Australia Day (January 26), but it has always had low levels of omega-3 acids.

But after 10 years of research, scientists at the CSIRO and from the University of Tasmania (UTAS) have come up with a way to boost omega-3 levels in lambs.

A “winning formula” of omega-3-rich oils, such as rice bran oil, safflower oil and canola oil, is infused into feed pellets which are fed to lambs.

University of Tasmania Associate Professor Aduli Malau-Aduli said the lambs were given the infused pellets for up to 15 weeks before they are taken to slaughter.

The omega-3 acids are then absorbed into the muscle of the lamb, which is then consumed as food.

“What we have done —and we have established this without any reasonable doubt — if we can strike the right level, five per cent of the oil within the pellet, then we are getting the right quantity in there,” Malau-Aduli says.

The CSIRO and UTAS believe the omega-3-rich lambs contain 40 milligrams of omega-3 per serving, which is short of the 200 milligrams of omega-3 found in fish, but they said they hope to double the healthy oil levels in the near future.

They did admit that, for the time being, the best way to boost the intake of omega-3 acids was by continuing to eat fish.

“We’re now up to a fifth of what we see in the average Australian fish, and we’re also aiming to perhaps go higher again, but it’s going to be a long time before lamb would compete directly with fish,” Nichols said.