Review: PurePharma O3 Fish Oil

This week, we take a moment to review PurePharma O3 Fish Oil.

Item: PurePharma O3 Fish Oil
Price: $37 USD for 120 capsules
Manufacturer: PurePharma
Purchase: PurePharma

Most functional fitness athletes need not be convinced of the benefits of fish oil. Most people just hear train more, recover faster and that is all they need to know.

However, the benefits of taking fish oil makes an extremely long list that goes beyond training alone. It’s anti-inflammatory properties seem to be the cure for the human race, but hey, I am not your doctor – I am your Rx Reviewer.

Most CrossFitters want fish oil, take fish oil and need fish oil, but how do you decide which one is overrated, overpriced and overlooked?

I recently completed a full six weeks on PurePharma Fish Oil and their Vitamin D. This review will primarily focus on the fish oil because, while Vitamin D is important and healthy, it is not as easily noticeable in training or for review.

Fish Oil (Info from their website):

At PurePharma, we strive to make the freshest, purest and most potent fish oil possible. We achieve this by:

1. Using the whole body of small deep sea fish
2. Molecularly destilling the oil two times to achieve ultra high concentration and purity
3. Cold filtrating the oil as a final purification step to gently remove all contaminants
4. Carefully managing heat, light and oxygen exposure throughout production to ensure the absence of oxidation

Sounds pretty legit, right?

I agree with the purity of their products and I think they truly fit in with the CrossFit lifestyle of health and fitness.

The Good:

Effective – The fish oil works! I was no stranger to fish oil before the PurePharma review, but I went off of fish oil for almost a month before going on PurePharma just to check to make sure I had the usual results of fish oil. I train a lot, and notice when I am on and off fish oil. PurePharma is very effective as a fish oil product.

Burp(ees) – When I tell anyone that I take fish oil, 9 times out of 10 they will ask, “Do you burp it up all day?” Well my official answer for PurePahrma fish oil is, no, I did not have any noticeable burps that tasted like fish oil. However, I always take fish oil with a meal, so maybe that helps.

Purity – If you are snagging your fish oil for $8 at your local drugstore, you are getting a pretty low grade, filler added less potent fish oil. PurePharma has an extremely high quality fish oil that is pure and fits with the Paleo peeps out there.

Dose – PurePharma dosing is pretty great. 2000mg per serving with 40 servings per bottle is a pretty good dose. That’s pretty good compared to some of those drugstore fish oils only have about 300-600mg per dose.

The Bad:

Shipping – My biggest beef with PurePharma, so it has to be mentioned. I received my PurePharma fish oil in the mail and all of my pills were semi-melted together. In fact, I could not even get any of the pills out of the bottle. I had to cut the bottle open (which was incredibly hard) and harvest what fish oil I could. I pulled most of them apart, but the rest I had to kind of take in chunks… the things I do as a reviewer (kidding). This was very upsetting and the main reason I am not currently taking PurePharma fish oil.

Price – While I think, for the purity of the product and dose, PurePharam is competitively priced, I also think they are just really great at marketing their product. $37 USD a month for high quality fish oil is not that bad, but I think there is extremely pure fish oil in liquid form out there that trumps their price to serving ratio.

Conclusion

I think PurePharma has some great products; they are pure and they deliver exactly what they advertise. All of their products are effective and would be value added for any CrossFitter out there.

However, due to my shipping experience, the price and the massive amounts fish oil I take on a daily basis, I will have to go with a pure liquid fish oil that has a lower cost per serving.