Cookie packs punch

It’s a cookie that makes a difference.

That’s the way Drs. Bo Martinsen and Anne-Marie Chalmers describe their recent creation — an oatmeal-based cookie in four flavors that packs a healthy punch: 2,000 milligrams of omega-3, along with a high content of calcium, vitamin D and fiber.

And the best part of the invention? It has all the health benefits of eating salmon, cod or other fatty fish but none of the taste.

The doctors, husband and wife, started developing the cookie three years ago as part of their Venice-based company Ambo Foods. Martinsen, a Norwegian, was sold on the idea of helping people lower their cholesterol and improve their overall health by developing a product that could delivery omega-3 in a way that was convenient and tasted good.

“Few people understand the amount needed of omega-3,” he said. “You would have to have seven fish-oil capsules to come up with the same amount provided in one cookie.”

Because Americans don’t eat as much fish in their regular diets as people in Japan, Iceland and Scandinavia, their response to fish-oil capsules as a supplement to their diet is often a negative one, Martinsen and Chalmers said.

“We’ve managed to conceal and neutralize the taste,” Martinsen said, through the preparation and manufacturing of the cookie, which has 41 patents claims internationally.

The doctors formed Wellpride in 2003 and first started producing fish oil for the horse industry. The oil, shipped in from Norway and packaged locally, is poured over the food of thoroughbreds to improve their overall health.

“It’s a very novel idea in the horse industry,” Chalmers said. “We use fresh fish oil so there is no taste or smell.”

Once the product’s success was assured — it now brings in more than $1 million a year in revenue — the couple turned their attention to humans. In 2008, they formed Ambo Foods and developed the cookie as a way to get omega-3 in more peoples’ diets.

“It was extremely challenging,” Martinsen said. “I don’t know how many cookies we threw away.” But they didn’t give up and the result is now headed to market, beginning with sales on the Internet at OmegaCookie.com and at farmers markets.

Cookie flavors are cranberry, tropical, chocolate chip and ginger-raisin and are equal to the omega-3 equivalent of a 4-ounce salmon filet. They’re gluten free with 220 calories each, 5 grams of fiber and 10 grams of fat.

The cookies come individually wrapped 15 to a box at a cost of $30 or $2 a cookie.

Dr. William Corin, a cardiologist in Venice, uses the cookie himself and has advised some of his patients to try it.

“Omega-3 is one of the primary ways to lower triglyceride levels,” he said. “This is a high quality product and its convenient. You don’t have the fish flavor you get sometimes with the capsules.” The American Heart Association also recommends a gram a day or 1,000 milligrams of omega-3.