High five!
You’ve made some big changes in your family’s diet recently and are really focusing on eating organic. You’ve stopped buying boxed cereal and other processed snacks at the grocery store and are making homemade snacks and treats with wholesome ingredients instead. You’re even sprouting or soaking nuts and seeds and even your legumes and grains!
You’ve joined an organic fruit and veggie co-op and made the switch to grassfed locally produced meats. You’ve even taken the wise step of incorporating raw grassfed milk into your family’s diet.
While all these changes are wonderful and beneficial compared with how you’ve been eating, I’ve got some tough news for you.
These changes alone are not going to get you healthy.
Eating organic is not the way to health shocking as it may sound!
Gulp.
How can this be, you ask? Your diet is now light years ahead of where it was. How can this organic, whole foods diet not result in vibrant health?
Let me tell you a little story ….
The Telling Tale of the South Sea Islanders
The first Europeans to visit the South Sea Islands in the 1700’s were Captain Cook and his crew. Tahiti was truly a paradise with beautiful people whose frequent smiles revealed perfectly straight, pearly white teeth.
Dr. Weston A. Price found the same blissful environment nearly 200 years later when he arrived with his wife to study these happy, healthy people. Dr. Price noted that the bone structure of the South Sea Islanders was the most perfect of any of the 14 isolated traditional cultures he studied during his travels around the world in the 1920’s and 1930’s which he documented in the amazing book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
The traditional diet of the South Sea Islanders was high fat, consisting of seafood and pork with coconut the most important plant based staple.  Tropical fruits and other plants were also consumed as there were plenty available in such a temperate and ideal growing climate.
The environment and water were, of course, pristine and food was abundant.
Wouldn’t such an organic, whole foods diet be enough for health?
No, it was not.
The South Sea Islanders knew from observation and perhaps instinct that their clean, whole mixed diet was not enough to maintain their own health or to produce healthy babies and children.
The Sacred Food the South Sea Islanders Could Not Do Without
Despite having plenty of whole, nutrient dense foods available during all times of the year, the South Sea Islanders risked their lives over and over again to hunt sharks.
Once a shark was caught and brought to shore, the liver was removed and put inside the shark’s stomach which was then hung on a tree to ferment.
The oil that came out of the shark liver as it fermented provided a plethora of fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K2 to the South Sea Islander diet that was the critical missing link for vibrant health. This oil was given to growing children and young adults who were about to get married and also to pregnant women.  Such oil would have been critical to maintaining health into advanced age as well.
Dr. Price knew from research that the level of fat soluble activators in the South Sea Islander diet was about 10 times higher than the Americans of his day … and processed, devitalized foods had not even arrived in full force yet!
Fat Soluble Vitamins More Important Than Eating Organic
The story of the South Sea Islanders illustrates the critical nature of the fat soluble vitamins in the diet. Without them, no matter how pure, whole and organic a diet may be, health will not be maintained nor healthy children easily produced.
The fat soluble activators A, D, and K2 supercharge mineral absorption into the body tissues and enhance the health and function of every organ system.
Fortunately, fermented cod liver oil and fermented skate liver oil are available today that are very similar to the fermented shark liver oil consumed by the South Sea Islanders.
Please note that the typical brand name fish or krill oil and even cod liver oils on the market are highly processed, industrialized, rancid, deodorized oils that should be avoided. Â Only fermented cod and skate liver oil is processed with no heat as practiced by traditional cultures.
I have been taking these types of oils for many years and would never consider my whole foods diet complete without them. Why reinvent the wheel and experiment with the latest and greatest silver bullet supplements that seem to change every few months when traditional cultures such as the South Sea Islanders already knew what it took to have healthy babies and stay vibrantly healthy well into old age?
Where to Source Fermented Fish Liver Oils
Please refer to my Resources page for a list of companies that offer clean, purified fermented fish liver oils to provide your whole foods diet with the critical fat soluble activators A, D, and K2.
What to Do if You are Allergic to Fish
If fermented cod or skate liver oil aren’t possible for you due to a seafood allergy, note that you can obtain fat soluble vitamins in other foods valued by other Traditional cultures such as raw, grassfed butter (must be deep yellow to orange in color – sources), fish eggs (many can tolerate fish eggs even with a seafood allergy), emu oil from emus eating their native diet (sources), deep orange yolks from pastured hens, and liver from land based animals.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source:Â Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Weston A. Price DDS
I buy the flavor free FCLO and I personally fill empty capsules with the syringe that comes with the bottle. Each family member takes 3 a day, that is about 3/4 tsp. One bottle lasts us one month. We should probably take at least one more per day, but the food budget is pretty tight.
Marcee and whoever else – I’m VERY interested in filling capsules for my family. Is this easy to do? How long do you think it would take to turn a whole bottle into capsules? I just can’t take the taste. I tried to hold breath and other things. Where do you get your capsules? I think I can get some through Wholesale Frontier.
THANKS!
LYNN
The healthfood store has empty capsules you can buy.. It’s easy to do but time consuming and messy.
I LOVE the way my skin feels when I take the fermented cod liver oil capsules! So baby soft! I love your articles and just ordered some books you recommend yesterday.
I often take a swig of fermented pickle juice or a spoon of fermented sauerkraut right after taking cod liver oil. Despite the flavorings, I just don’t like the way the taste of cod liver oil lingers. 🙂
Great post! Very informative. Im off to the health food store.
Don’t buy cod liver oil at the healthfood store. The brands there are low quality!!
What about the Barleans brand cod liver oil?
my son is on Gaps….should i not do the butter oil blend then? Is it safe to give him the mint flavored kind? they accidnetly shipped me the flavored so Im using that one.
thanks sarah! i enjoy your posts & the time you take to read them.
Also, I am due in Sept & plan on BF’ing of course…but w/my son he had major issues latching on. I am planning on buying the package for Make-your-own-formula from WAPF JUST in case I have issues with this baby! How long will this last if I just use it sporadically? Im asking b/c w/my daughter who nursed perfectly had jaundice. So the nurses encouraged me to give her formula to make her have BM’s….in order to bring her billirubin down. I do not want to use formula w/this baby if he has jaundice as well (both my kids had it at right after birth). Just wanted your opinion 🙂
Skip the butter oil unless he is eating ghee with no symptoms and is not severe GAPS. I used the WAPF raw milk formula only when I was out for the evening etc and the basic ingredients were fine in the pantry for the 2 years that I nursed using only very very sporadically. Of course, I used fresh raw cream and milk each time I made it 🙂
thank you!
I had many problem nursing my son before 2 months — discovered when he was older that he had tongue-tie which causes problems latching. (Nursed my not tongue tied daughter ok 4 years later) If I knew then what I know now. I wish I had found a lactation consultant who knew about tongue tie and a doctor local enough to clip it for us. Still thinking of getting it clipped because his jaw seems to be held back — now in an orthodontic appliance to bring it forward but am worried after nearly 5K treatment the tongue tie will pull it back again… Anyway, here’s a link with some info and resources that might help you breastfeed more successfully.
http://kellymom.com/health/baby-health/bfhelp-tonguetie/
I watched the video on how you take the FCLO… then I read your post on how to give your child FCLO (via their skin). I hate the smell/ taste of fish, so I was thinking I’d have spend more $/ dose and go with the capsules. But, reading your kid-friendly idea, I think I might try that. Some people put lotion on after a shower, I’ll lather on the cod liver oil… ha! How long does it take to absorb? Once it’s dry, will it still stain any clothes that touch it? Does the smell go away quickly?
Sorry for all the questions… just want to make sure I’ll really use it before I spend the $$$ 🙂
Yes, it stains clothes! It does stop smelling fishy within a few minutes of going on the skin curiously enough.
Hmmm… well if it still stains clothes even once it’s dry, then I may have to rethink my idea… May have to go with the capsules afterall. The Green Pasture’s website says 2 capsules a day of the butter oil/ CLO blend is a “serving size” (versus 2.5 ml of the liquid gel). Would you recommend more than that?
Thanks for the feedback!
I have found that the smell never goes away on clothes. I give it to my toddler in the am while he’s still in his pajamas and sometimes if he spits it out or it spills his pajamas sometimes have a fish smell even after several washings.
Can you eat/take anything else (liver?) that would
have the same benefits as these oils?
We can get grass fed beef liver for free from a local farmer!
You would need to eat grassfed liver 2-3 times per week and yes that would be fine. Most people would never eat liver frequently enough which is why the oil would be better to ensure that it is a consistent amount of fat soluble activators in the diet.
Sorry if my question seems simple but Im trying to understand all this…so eating grassfed BEEF livers would be the same as taking a fish liver oil? How is that?
Curious why you take both cod liver oil and skate liver oil? What does skate liver oil have that cod liver doesn’t?
See my answer in a comment above as to why I take both.
So… I ordered from Green Pastures. The cinnamon tingle cod liver/butter oil gel and it’s pretty awful. Blech. Not as awful as some of those health food store type cod liver oil pills- no burps with the Green Pastures gel. Any ideas for me to finish this bottle? Maybe mix it in something. I was thinking oatmeal but I don’t want to lessen or destroy the benefit.
Yes the title of the article needs to change: All natives and South Sea Islanders and most Asian cultures eat natural foods not necessarily organic but full of vitamin D3, omega fish oils and natural vegetables: You will have a far healthier immune system if you were to eat like the above, its your immune system you have to keep healthy then you can fight disease far easier!