which vegan foods contain omega-3?

Plenty of plant foods contain omega-3. The catch is that almost all of them contain the same one, and it isn't the one that provides the benefits. So here's what's actually in each, per serving rather than per 100 g, because nobody eats 100 g of flaxseed.

what are omega-3 fatty acids?

A family of fats your body can't build for itself.

They're polyunsaturated fatty acids, and "essential", meaning that your body has no way of making them from scratch, so every bit you have came in through your diet. [2]

There are three you need to know about. ALA, alpha-linolenic acid, is the one in plants. EPA and DHA are the two your body uses directly, and they come from the sea, with fish being the most common source. [2]

They're mostly structural. Rather than being burned for energy, they get built into the membrane around every cell you have, and DHA in particular collects where those membranes need to stay flexible and carry signals, which is why there's so much of it in your brain and in the retina of your eye.

what counts as an omega-3 food?

It depends which omega-3 you mean.

Plant foods such as nuts and seeds are generous with ALA, but give you essentially no EPA or DHA. Your body can convert some ALA into EPA and DHA, which sounds like it solves the problem, except it doesn't do it well: reviews of ordinary diets put ALA to EPA at around 6%, and ALA to DHA from 0% to 4% at the most generous end. [3][4][5]

So when a food gets called high in omega-3, check which one it means. Everything below except the last is an ALA food.

SUMMARY: omega-3s are essential fats you have to eat. Plant foods give you ALA. EPA and DHA come from the sea, and your body converts only a little ALA into them.

which vegan foods contain the most omega-3?

By weight, flaxseed and chia are far ahead of everything else.

All figures from USDA, including the serving weights. [1]

The per-100 g column is the one everyone quotes, and it's the one that misleads. Flaxseed looks twice as good as walnuts until you notice you eat a spoonful of one and a handful of the other.

SUMMARY: flaxseed and chia are the densest for ALA, but serving sizes can be misleading. Walnuts, hemp and flaxseed all land between 2.5 g and 2.7 g in a normal portion.

how much omega-3 is in flaxseed?

About 2.7 g of ALA in two tablespoons of ground seed. [1]

In the case of flaxseed, the grinding is important. The oil sits inside a hard coat that mostly survives the trip through you, so whole flaxseed can go straight out the other end.

A tablespoon of ground flaxseed is 7 g and carries roughly 1.4 g, so one spoonful on its own doesn't give you the 2 g needed for ALA's cholesterol benefits. Two does, comfortably. 

During a trial, healthy adults were fed whole seed, milled seed or flaxseed oil baked into muffins for three months. Milled seed and oil both raised plasma ALA; whole seed didn't shift it at all. [8] Grind it, or buy it ready-ground and keep it in the fridge.

The same trial is quietly useful for another reason: even at 6 g of ALA a day for three months, none of the groups showed any rise in EPA or DHA. [8] This further supports the fact that eating ALA-rich foods is not a reliable way to increase your EPA and DHA intake.

But flaxseeds does come with other benefits: two tablespoons carry about 2.5 g of protein, 3.2 g of fibre and 52 mg of magnesium, along with phosphorus, potassium and manganese. [1]

SUMMARY: two tablespoons of ground flaxseed give about 2.7 g of ALA. Whole seeds mostly pass through undigested, so grind them.

how much omega-3 is in chia seeds?

About 5 g of ALA in a 28 g serving, which is the densest hit on this list. [1]

Chia has one practical advantage over flaxseed. You don't have to grind it, because the seed is soft enough to break down as it is, and it soaks up liquid, which is why it works in overnight oats and puddings instead of only being sprinkled on things.

What else comes with it: chia is the fibre standout on this page. A 28 g serving carries about 9.6 g of fibre, roughly a third of a day's worth, plus 4.6 g of protein, 94 mg of magnesium, 241 mg of phosphorus and 2.2 mg of iron. [1]

SUMMARY: a 28 g serving of chia carries about 5 g of ALA, and unlike flaxseed you don't need to grind it.

how much omega-3 is in hemp seeds?

About 2.6 g of ALA in three tablespoons of hulled seed, which is USDA's own serving. [1]

Per-tablespoon figures for hemp vary a lot, but a single tablespoon is around 10 g and carries about 0.87 g of ALA. Hemp is a good source. It isn't three times better than flaxseed.

Hulled hemp seeds, sometimes sold as hemp hearts, are soft and mild and go into almost anything without changing how it feels to eat.

The other nutrients are where hemp really shines. Hulled hemp seeds are about 32% protein by weight, so three tablespoons give you roughly 9.5 g, about double what the same weight of chia or walnuts provides. The same serving carries 210 mg of magnesium, 495 mg of phosphorus, 3 mg of zinc and 2.4 mg of iron. [1] Low in fibre, though, at about 1.2 g, because the hulls are the fibrous part and they've been taken off.

SUMMARY: three tablespoons of hulled hemp seeds give about 2.6 g of ALA. One tablespoon is closer to 0.87 g.

do walnuts contain omega-3?

Yes, and they're the only common tree nut that does in any quantity.

Seven whole walnuts weigh about 28 g and carry roughly 2.5 g of ALA. [1] It's also the easiest serving here to actually eat, because you don't have to grind it, soak it or build a recipe around it.

What else comes with it: that handful brings about 4.3 g of protein, 1.9 g of fibre, 44 mg of magnesium, 0.44 mg of copper and about 0.96 mg of manganese. [1]

SUMMARY: about seven walnuts, roughly 28 g, give about 2.5 g of ALA. The only tree nut that is a real ALA source.

do kidney beans contain omega-3?

A little. Less than the seeds and nuts above, but more than most people expect.

A cooked cup of kidney beans, about 177 g, carries roughly 0.30 g of ALA. [1] That's a tenth of what two tablespoons of ground flaxseed give you, so beans aren't the way to hit an omega-3 target.

They're on the list anyway because of portion size. Nobody eats 177 g of flaxseed, and plenty of people put away that many beans in a chilli or a stew without thinking about it. Small number, big serving, eaten often.

That same cooked cup carries about 15 g of protein and 11 g of fibre, which is more of both than any other food on this page, along with 230 micrograms of folate, 5.2 mg of iron, 713 mg of potassium and 80 mg of magnesium. [1] You would not eat kidney beans for the ALA. You might well eat them for everything else.

SUMMARY: a cooked cup of kidney beans has about 0.30 g of ALA. Not a dense source of omega-3, but it adds up because of how much of them people eat.

what about algae?

Algae is the exception on this page, and it's a very special plant source.

Every other food here contains omega-3 ALA (a short chain fatty acid) and leaves your body to do the conversion into the long chain EPA and DHA that your body needs. Algae makes EPA and DHA itself, which makes it the only plant source that supplies them ready-made. [2]

This is a big deal as it's also where the omega-3 in fish comes from. Fish don't make EPA and DHA themselves. They accumulate it by eating algae, or by eating something that ate algae. [2] A randomised trial gave 32 adults either algal-oil capsules or portions of cooked salmon, both at 600 mg of DHA a day, and DHA rose by similar amounts in both groups. [7]

The catch is that you don't really eat algae as a food. It comes as an oil, which puts it in the supplement category rather than the shopping list.

If you'd like to add plant-based EPA and DHA to your diet, take a look at our vegan omega-3 DHA and EPA from algae.

SUMMARY: algae is the only plant source of EPA and DHA, and it's where fish get theirs. It comes as an oil rather than a food and it easy to take as a supplement.

how much omega-3 do you actually need?

Three figures, and they aren't interchangeable.

At 2 g of ALA a day, ALA contributes to the maintenance of normal blood cholesterol levels. Two tablespoons of ground flaxseed a day is enough for this.

At 250 mg of DHA a day, DHA contributes to the maintenance of normal brain function and vision.

At 250 mg of EPA and DHA combined, EPA and DHA contribute to the normal function of the heart.

The first one is easy from the foods above. The other two are where it get tough, because none of those foods contain any EPA or DHA at all, and conversion from ALA gives you a little EPA and almost no DHA. [3][4][5]

If you eat oily fish twice a week you're covered, which is what the NHS recommends. [6] If you don't, an algae-based omega-3 supplement is the best way to meet your daily needs.

SUMMARY: 2 g of ALA a day is easy from plants. The 250 mg DHA and 250 mg EPA-and-DHA figures are not, because plant foods contain neither. The algae-based omega-3 supplement is the best way.

the bottom line

Plant foods aren't short of omega-3. They're short of two specific kinds of it.

Flaxseed, chia, hemp and walnuts will all get you enough ALA without much effort, and beans quietly help because of how many of them you eat. None of them will give you EPA or DHA, and your body won't reliably make enough from what they do give you.

Algae is the one plant source that skips that problem, because it makes both directly. Everything else here earns its place on your plate anyway.