Study finds oxidized (aka "rancid") fish oil to be benign

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, I remember that thread now, thanks Eveheart. I'm just not understanding why I would never eat RFPCLO, high meat or very ripe fatty durian fruit because of it.

[eveheart]

Van, I wrote this question to Blue Ice FCLO's company, GreenPasture.org. I ferment stuff, too, and I agree that oil, under any condition I know of, simply does not ferment. I have assumed that they mean fermented-cod-liver oil, not fermented-oil from cod-liver. Their ad copy says that the fermenting "imparts a natural enzymatic, acidic activity", which accounts for the acidic feel on the throat. Overall, catalysts called enzymes suggest raw, uncooked, unheated. The process they described is cod oil from a fermentation process. Like all good ad copy, the truth lies between the lines. I am interested to see if they actually give a pertinent clarification.

GreenPasture.org wrote:
Our livers are indeed allowed to ferment.  Nothing is added; just the natural enzymatic breakdown of the livers over many months.

They linked me to an online video that mentioned three methods of extracting nutrients: by heat, by chemicals, and by their enzymatic fermentation method. The word fermentation varies in context, whether it's biology, chemistry, or culinary, so I have no problem with them calling their product fermented cod liver oil, as long as I understand that it is the liver that is fermented, not the oil.

[PaleoPhil]

Cool, thanks. I wonder if part of the reason they call it RFCLO is that it sounds better than oil made from fermented raw livers.

It turns out Van's concerns about theoretical oxidants in RFPCLO have been raised by some of Green Pasture's customers before. This is from one of GP's responses:

Peroxide value
Dave Wetzel
http://www.greenpasture.org/utility/showArticle/?ObjectID=6195&find=peroxide&happ=siteAdministrator
 
"The most recent test on the fermented clo peroxide value came in at .4. This is a typical reading.

The Peroxide value of an oil is used as a measurement of the extent to which rancidity reactions have occurred during storage/processing. Other methods are available but peroxide value is the most widely used.

A great oil is under 1 peroxide value, a good oil is under 10 peroxide value [the maximum allowance per the Norwegian Medicinal Standard (NMS) and the European Pharmacopoeia Standard (EPS)--the US currently has no standard] and I would question oils above 10 or 15 peroxide value.

To give an example on how low the fclo .4 value is in relation to the industry i will reference a brand of highly processed clo that touts it's product based on low peroxide value. They guarantee below 1 peroxide value and on their web site they show a sample cert that indicates a .76 peroxide value. What they do not discuss is the amount if heavy processing required to achieve this low number nor do they discuss the extent that a highly processed oil deteriorates (increases in peroxide value) once opened/exposed to air.

The fermented clo achieves a 50% better number than the best readings of other clo's and without the use of heavy industrial processing. Plus the fermented clo will not rapidly increase it's peroxide value when exposed to air as it has not been extracted with heat/industrial processing methods."

Here's an opinion on the Green Pasture's CLO:

http://chriskresser.com/the-definitive-fish-oil-buyers-guide
"Notes: because fermented cod liver oil contains vitamins A, D and K2 in addition to EPA and DHA, and because most people are deficient in some or all of these nutrients, this is currently the only product I recommend to everyone – patients, family and friends – regardless of their health status."

[PaleoPhil]

I think Van or someone mentioned somewhere that they doubted that high (fermented) meat/fish/sea mammals would have been a significant food during the Paleolithic, yet then how do we explain the existence of the umami taste sense for glutamate in humans, which is high in fermented protein foods like high meat, fermented fish/oil/sea mammals and fermented kelp (BTW, kelp is not a plant, it's composed of algae creatures called protists)? The high umami content of high meat and fermented fish mean these foods have a high tastiness factor for people whose alliesthetic mechanism is working well. Because raw fermented animal foods have this umami tastiness, they presumably would have been savored when available and it makes sense to eat them from an Instincto perspective. When there is sufficient meat, such as after a big kill, big wild cats even drag meat up into trees and dogs bury meaty bones to let them age/ferment a while, in part to improve the flavor as well as keep it safe, per some scientific articles I read in the past.

Seth Roberts has hypothesized that the umami part of the alliesthetic mechanism evolved due to benefits from the bacteria that do the fermenting:

A few weeks ago I came up with the idea that evolution shaped us to like umami taste, sour taste, and complex flavors so that we will eat more harmless-bacteria-laden food, which improves immune function.  (I pompously call this the umami hypothesis.) .... 

As for meat-, fish-, and dairy-grown bacteria, I don’t think they are very dangerous. Has anyone gotten food poisoning from yogurt? I keep in mind how much stinky fish the Eskimos ate. Maybe I should do some controlled rotting experiments — leave meat at room temperature for varying lengths of time before cooking and eating it.
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2009/02/12/the-comforts-of-the-unami-hypothesis/

The Inuit allegedly report health benefits from fermented meat/fish and even report getting "high" off of high meat.

Another interesting thing about the Green Pastures RFPCLO is apparently that not only do they not cook it, but as Eveheart reported, they also don't refine it, whereas all other CLO producers do:

http://www.marysgarden.com/colostrum/fermented_cod_liver_oil.htm
http://www.greenpasture.org/fermented-cod-liver-oil-butter-oil-vitamin-d-vitamin-a/update-on-cod-liver-oil-manufacturing-returning-to-traditional-production-techniques-for-the-quintessential-sacred-food/

[PaleoPhil]

I found that the Eskimos traditionally not only had stink heads (stink fish) and stink flipper, but also "stink oil." Stink oil is reportedly a traditional Eskimo condiment that is collected and preserved by fermenting raw seal or sea lion fatty flesh (alternatively, the fatty flesh is first cooked down into a liquid and then fermented) :

Ecology, Harvest, and Use of. Harbor Seals and Sea Lions: Interview Materials from Alaska Native Hunters. Technical Paper No. 249. Terry L. Haynes and Robert J. Wolfe, Editors
http://www.subsistence.adfg.state.ak.us/TechPap/tp249.pdf

p. 72
"Harbor Seal, Fat/Oil, Larsen Bay
Use stink oil for shizhuk. It's whipped up with berries. 210-26F makes it, so does 210-12F and 210-9. Put the oil in a jar and let it ferment--it sort of cures. It's mostly from seal. They used to use oil for lamps."

p. 76
"Sea Lion ... - They make stink oil out of the fat. They don't use the guts of sea lions."

p. 309
"Seal ... - Love stink oil. Can use it to dip dried salmon or wild celery into. Can bake clams with the oil."

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-314786.html
kaiwik
05-04-2005, 11:30 AM
Stink oil - big jar of fermented seal fat, usually eaten on boiled humpy (pink salmon).


"There are two schools of thought in the study area: traditionally, during periods of food shortage, every drop of this [Tomcod] liver oil was saved because it is exceptionally high in the fat-soluable vitamins A, E, and especially D, which are stored in the body and are crucial for maintaining good health through the long winter. The old Ieupiat didn’t name the vitamins but they knew intuitively that fish livers were important for health. Today, people have been eating the milder flavored trout livers for the past month, and seek to lessen the more fishy taste of tomcod livers by not using this extra oil." - Anore Jones, Iqaluich Nigiñaqtuat, Fish That We Eat, January 2006, http://alaska.fws.gov/asm/pdf/fisheries/reports/02-023final.pdf

Traditional Eskimo fermented animal foods were reportedly common and considered delicacies:

Telling Our Selves: Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska
By Chase Hensel

Inuit food often was and is fermented to perfection, much as a Camembert cheese is carefully ripened before consumption. "In a climate which does not readily turn all meats into inedible spoiled garbage, as would occur in some parts of the Lower-Forty-Eight, the Eskimos must try very hard to get their meats to 'cure,' or 'age,' which is what I suppose the foreigners mean when they describe rotten food" (Senungetuk 1971:68, emphasis in the original).

The nineteenth-century Moravian missionary John Kilbuck, in the following quotation, combined the environmental rationale and the recognition that people do actually like the resulting aged food:

"If from any reason, as sickness or overwork, a woman is unable to cut up and dry all the catch of the husband--the salmon are buried and cured by the secret process of the underground force.--The people of the coast are particularly addicted/given to the practice.--It seems to agree with them too.--When asked how they could eat such stinky stuff--with a bland smile--they reply "We don't eat the smell!" (in Fienup-Riordan 1988:11)

Sushi reportedly originates from an ancient practice of fermenting raw fish in rice:

Primitive Funa-Zushi. The Horrid Roots of Modern Sushi
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jul-primitive-funa-zushi-the-horrid-roots-of-modern-sushi
"Around 1000 years old, a preservation method called narezushi came to Japan from China.

The word "sushi" originally meant fermented fish, and has its roots in Southeast Asia.  According to the history of sushi, this type of sushi is first  seen in Japanese scriptures in the 7th century.  Later on, the fish were stuffed with rice before they were fermented, and this is called nare sushi and is the earliest form of sushi in Japan."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi
"Funazushi is a rare type of narezushi still prepared near Lake Biwa, Shiga Prefecture. Eighteen generations of the Kitamura family have been preparing the dish at Kitashina since 1619.[4]
Fresh funa are scaled and gutted through their gills keeping the body (and often the roe) of the fish intact. The fish are then packed with salt and aged for a year before being repacked annually in rice for up to four years. The resulting fermented dish may be served sliced thin or used as an ingredient in other dishes.[5][6]"

[Projectile Vomit]

Wow, fascinating to me that sushi has its roots in fermented raw fish. That's a useful tidbit of information.

Also, nice meeting you this past weekend at the VT Traditional Foods and Health Symposium Phil. Hopefully we'll cross paths again.

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, it was good to meet you. Oddly enough, I only found out about that symposium at the last minute from my dentist. It didn't seem well advertised.

I also suspect that red yeast rice, which is supposed to be medicinally heart-healthy, also derives from this Asian tradition of fermenting fish in rice that is itself fermented by yeast (such as red yeast, perhaps). I've been keeping an eye out for more info on this, but so far I haven't seen anyone in the Paleosphere discuss it.

There seems to be much cultural resistance in the USA and the British Isles to raw fermented meat/fish, so that few even ponder the topic. I suspect that fermented and aged foods are the source of the evolution of the umami taste sense ("aliesthetic mechanism"), especially with meats, fish, sea mammals, roots, tubers, mushrooms and seaweeds. I've noticed myself that mushrooms taste much better to me when dried, for example, and their toxin level supposedly drops so that even rather toxic hallucinogenic mushrooms become edible in small quantities when dried. All these foods are increasingly becoming regarded as healthy foods.

Every raw fermented/aged/cultured food I have investigated has turned out to have some sort of connection to thousands of years of tradition as a healthy food that is considered a delicacy by traditional peoples. It's interesting how history, archaeology, anthropology and other arts and sciences, as well as my own experience, are all pointing to what the elders of traditional peoples like the Eskimos, Chukchi and even Scandinavians have been insisting are wise practices even in the face of ridicule.

I suspect that hormesis is at work here, as in so many things, so that small/moderate or seasonal amounts are generally beneficial, whereas chronic excess may cause problems; but that's just another speculation.