Page 28 - Spring2009

Update on Cod Liver Oil

Manufacture

Returning to Traditional Production Techniques

for the Quintessential Sacred Food

By David Wetzel

hen I began to import cod liver oil, in order to

sell it along with the high-vitamin butter oil I
Wwas manufacturing, I felt it imperative to go to

Iceland and Norway to visit the various cod liver oil facto-
ries there. At that time, most cod liver oil in America was

imported from Scandinavia, with a small amount coming
from China. What I learned is described in an article pub-

lished in the Fall, 2005 issue of Wise Traditions and posted
at westonaprice.org.

To summarize my findings, all the factories were engaged in industrial
processing of cod liver oil, which involved alkali refining, bleaching, winter-
ization and deodorization. Each of these steps, especially the deodorization,
removes some of the precious fat-soluble vitamins, especially vitamin D. The
resulting products can be divided into four categories.
First is a fully cleaned and deodorized product with nothing added back
in. Products with very low levels of vitamin A with virtually no vitamin D
are of this type. To obtain meaningful levels of vitamins A and D from these
products would require consuming many tablespoonfuls—a practice that is
not only difficult to achieve, especially for children, but poses the danger of
supplying an excess of polyunsaturated fatty acids.
26 Wise Traditions SPRING 2009