Green Grass founding CEO Shin Seung-ho, fifth from left, poses with visitors to the firm’s head office in Chungju, about 110 kilometers south of Seoul. Fourth from left is Oh Jae-sae, a former four-term lawmaker from the governing Democratic Party. Photo courtesy of Green Grass

'Sunseo Omega-3' brand creator promotes new-concept foods

Green Grass founding CEO Shin Seung-ho appears to be a genuine entrepreneur. The farmer-turned-businessman has attempted to develop foods, which cure diseases over the past 18 years.

On the belief that “diseases caused by bad foods should be healed by good foods,” Shin has pulled out all the stops to make the “good foods,” otherwise called “medical foods.”

His tenet is to optimize the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio _ he tries to come up with foods, which are high in omega-3s. Toward that end, he created a dedicated brand of “Sunseo Omega-3.”

“Humans need to have a diet with a balanced ratio between omega-3 and omega-6. The ratio is supposed to be 1:4 or lower,” Shin said in a recent interview at his firm’s office in Chungju, some 110 kilometers south of Seoul.

“In modern diets, the ratio is higher than 1:15, which means that the actual intake of omega-3 is too low while that of omega-6 is too high. This leads to many chronic lifestyle diseases, including diabetes and hypertension, increasing the risk of heart diseases.”

Both omega-3 and omega-6 are essential fatty acids because the human body is incapable of producing them. If they do not come from diet, people will become sick.

There have been heated debates on the optimal ratio in the diet for the two families of fats. But an increasing number of researchers and health authorities take issue with the deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids in modern diets.

To deal with the problems, people are recommended to add some extra omega-3s by eating more foods originally loaded with omega-3s _ fish like tuna and salmon.

Another way is to eat omega-3-enriched foods, which Shin dubs “medical foods.”

“Nowadays, most animals are fed grain-based feeds, which contain corn. This results in the ultra high ratio of omega-6 compared to omega-3 in meat,” Shin said.

“We are working on a feed mixture technology designed to stabilize the ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in livestock.”

Shin supplies omega-3-enriched feeds to tens of thousands of hogs and dairy cows in Korea. Green Grass is carrying out a government-backed project to develop medical foods.

In the United States, his company also joined hands with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Green Grass now offers various omega-3-rich products like meat, pork, eggs, milk, yogurt, and processed foods based on its Sunseo Omega-3 brand.

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