Make Your Own Liver Oil?

[Fermenter Zym]

Hello WAPFers,
I'm sure you'll all very aware of the benefits of Cod Liver Oil. I was wondering if anyone knows the traditional preparation method of Fermented Cod Liver Oil.

Also, could you substitute the cod's livers with another animal's liver and still receive the same benefits (i.e. Vitamin A and D)?

Thanks,
Zym.

[CitrusHigh]

http://www.westonaprice.org/cod-liver-oil/clo-manufacturing

FZ, this is the traditional method, and I do believe Green Pasture's method is similar except that I think they use stainless steel vats instead of wood barrels. They bought a plot of land some where down in Missouri I want to say, though that could be wrong and buy the livers straight from the fisherman. I'm sure you could make fermented liver from a hoofed animal but it would not be near the same as FCLO. This is due to the different makeups of the respective tissues. Cod livers are like big sacks of oil because unlike salmon and other oily fish, cod store their oils in the liver.

[raw]

Wow! Good to know.

[RawZi]

I'm sure you could make fermented liver from a hoofed animal but it would not be near the same as FCLO. This is due to the different makeups of the respective tissues. Cod livers are like big sacks of oil because unlike salmon and other oily fish, cod store their oils in the liver.

    I think cod are not the only ones.  I think any cold deep water fish that has non-oily meat also has oily liver.

    I think land animals also have varying amounts of vitamins in their livers.

[CitrusHigh]

This is true RawZi. For example I don't typically take cod liver oil, I prefer Fermented Skate liver oil. But fish are a whole other category from land animals all together, so no way to know how it would work until you tried it.

[Dorothy]

"I learned that there are five steps to the refining
process:

   1. Alkali refining, which removes free fatty acids and some metals (I view this is as a type of chelation operation.)
   2. Bleaching, which removes color substances, metals and dioxins. This is a chelation-type of process that uses clay or other natural earth absorbents.
   3. Winterization, which removes sterins (saturated fats). This is a cold press or filter type of operation.
   4. Deodorization, which removes pesticides, PCBs, most of vitamin D and quite a bit of the vitamin A.
   5. Add vitamins (either natural or synthetic) to meet standards or the requirements of the retailers.

Each of the first three stages removes some vitamins but it is the deodorization step that takes out the most. This is why processors then add the vitamins back in. The shocking discovery I made is that usually the vitamins added are synthetic--retinol palmitate and vitamin D3 made by irradiating lanolin with ultra-violet light."

OY! When buying oils in general you have to interrogate the manufacturer like an old-time reporter. Same with seed oils. That's why I usually try to eat the seeds themselves instead.

Sounds pretty easy to make unheated cod-liver oil just by fermenting and taking off the top layer of oil. Granted, you won't get every last drop of oil out of it - but having it raw would be a big plus.

Is green pastures heated? How is that made? Weston A. Price folks don't care if things are cooked or heated or not.

[CitrusHigh]

Without trying to be rude Dorothy, that is a gross misrepresentation of the WAPF.  They DO care, A LOT! hence their campaign for raw milk. Unfortunately they do cook plenty of their stuff, which I have pointed out to them time and time again as an inconsistency in their POV. And you would be suprised how many people I've turned on to raw meat by this avenue. These Pricers are very intelligent, and many of them, if you point out how illogical their view is, will give raw meat a chance!

Furthermore, any time I talk about cod liver oil, I'm talking about Fermented cod liver oil, which is synonomous with green pastures, because it is the only manufacturer that makes a raw, unheated product. ALL other cod liver oils to my knowledge are toxic, highly processed waste of resources.

Green pasture's is the real deal and the only real deal, for now anyway, accept no imitations!

[Dorothy]

I apologize. You are absolutely right Citrus. WAPF truly does care dramatically about raw milk and you are right that they are quite open to raw animal products as well as Price did say that the groups he studied did eat raw animal foods and Sally Fallon's book even has some raw recipes in it.

What I should have said was that WAPFers do not make raw a criteria for their foods and supplements as a general rule. 

It's good to find a high quality raw source - especially for oils. Doesn't green pastures make flavored oils as well - or is that butter? The taste of cod liver oil is what stops us from getting it and I think I remember researching oil mixed with butter that taste better supposedly - but the butter was heated. I should re-visit this topic with my WAPF group. I've added carrot juice for betacarotene for hubbie but it's not always too easy for me to fit in the whole process of set up and clean up in my day.

Does the oil you get Citrus taste better than CLO?

[CitrusHigh]

No, the oil I get tastes decidedly stronger. I will sometimes get the FCLO, but typically I prefer the FSLO.

Most of GP's Oil is flavored, but they do leave some unflavored. I buy that kind when I get  the FCLO, but the only FSLO they have is flavored with orange and lemon oil. I would prefer to get it without the flavoring but they do not offer it.

The benefits outweigh the initial unpleasant taste of the oil, of which you become accustomed to, 2 or 3 bottles later.

They do make a high vitamin butter oil and a blend of that and FCLO. I don't know about the processing of the butter oil, but I would be very suspicious of it. Just because their fish liver oils are raw does NOT mean the butter oil is, and I'm guessing they heat extract that too, but I could be wrong, since they're aware of the benefits of raw fish liver oil.

As with the cooked foods, I am constantly reminding them that typical vitamin supplements are not natural and are extracted with solvents. Some listen, some do not, but they are far and away more open to that idea than the general population.