Another Look at Cod Liver Oil

It was a story in Dr. Weston A. Price’s book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, that ultimately got me really interested in cod liver oil.  Until I read about Dr. Price’s experience with school children and cod liver oil, I hadn’t taken it very seriously.  Before that, I thought cod liver oil was just a bad-tasting elixir forced on growing children by well-meaning grandmothers!  Well, not exactly.

One Good Meal with Cod Liver Oil

In Chapter 22, “A New Vitamin-Like Activator,” Dr. Price shared about a group of children from poor families during the “industrial depression” who received “one extra good meal a day at midday” at the mission -- children who had rampant dental caries.  At home the families were eating a diet that had been responsible for their tooth decay — high in sweets and refined starches like “highly sweetened coffee and white bread, vegetable fat, pancakes made of a white flour and eaten with syrup, and doughnuts fried in vegetable fat.”  But, one meal a day, prepared and eaten at school (and strictly monitored for nutritional value), “completely controlled the dental caries of each member of the group.”  Even their capacity to learn improved!

So, what did that one good meal a day include?  According to Dr. Price* it included:

• 4 oz. of tomato or orange juice with 1 tsp. of equal parts very high-vitamin natural cod liver oil and especially high-vitamin butter oil.

• 1 pint of a very rich vegetable and meat stew made largely from bone marrow and fine cuts of tender meat (with plenty of very yellow carrots). (Sometimes the meat stew was substituted with fish chowder or organs of animals).

• Cooked fruit with very little sweetening.

• Rolls made from freshly-ground whole wheat and spread with high-vitamin butter.

• 2 glasses of fresh (raw) whole milk

There is a lot of goodness in this meal from the 1930s or 40s. Cod liver oil was only one part of the equation. But, nonetheless, it intrigued me and I began studying the true value of cod liver oil.

The cod liver oil used in this experiment was likely not the deodorized, oxidized (rancid), highly-processed oil of modern times where vitamins are first stripped out (through the processing), then added back in from such sources as irradiated lanolin. No kidding! I’ve learned a lot since spearheading the launch of our AzureWell line of professional-grade supplements. Together with the help of scientists, researchers, practitioners, and suppliers who have your health in mind, we’re able to bring you a great cod liver oil that maintains the goodness of the natural cod fish.

What Makes AzureWell’s Alaskan Cod Liver Oil Remarkable

• No synthetic vitamins are added back in to “spike” the numbers.  The levels of vitamin A and D are entirely natural as they came from the fish.

• Minimal processing retains the “Triglyceride backbone” — These are a primary form of energy storage in the body and important to the structure of cell membranes.

• Screened and tested for heavy metals.

• From the cold Alaskan waters with no evidence of radiation contamination.

• Tested for oxidation (rancidity).

• Carefully encapsulated to prevent oxidation.  (Go ahead!  Bite the capsule open and taste the unflavored oil.  It doesn’t taste bad.  Perhaps you’ll think it tastes fishy, as minimally processed fish oil should… but not “bad.”)

While we plan to offer liquid and flavored options in the future, our base cod liver oil (our starting ingredient) will always be of exceptional quality.

For more insights into the goodness of our superior cod liver oil, watch our podcast video with Dr. Alphonzo Monzo on Ceruloplasmin.  And, add unflavored AzureWell Alaskan Cod Liver Oil capsules to your diet — as a kind of super food!

*References:

1. Nutrition & Physical Degeneration, by Weston A. Price, DDS, copyright 1939, (8th edition copyright 2008 by the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation), pages 392-393.