BLUE ICE™ FERMENTED COD LIVER OIL - Liquid

Fermented cod liver oil is a natural product that is made by the prolonged soaking of wild cod livers in brine, allowing the liver to naturally ferment, then draining off the resulting oil that accumulates on the top. Read more:  Fermented Cod Liver Oil: A Traditional Food.

Rancidification is more related to taste and odor. However, these flavors are desirable for lot of products, specially for fermented foods, such as aged cheese, fish sauce, etc. We tested our fermented cod liver oil for rancidities, and presented the results to scientists for analysis. Their conclusion is the fermented cod liver oil is not rancid.

Further reading:

Scientific Analysis of Dr. Jacob Friest
Scientific Analysis of Oxidation Test Reports by Dr. Subramaniam Sathivel
Scientific Analysis of Oxidation Test Reports by Dr. Vicki Schlegel

The name was derived from the process used to extract the oil from the liver.  The livers are fermented, not the oil.  There are three common ways to rupture the cell membrane to extract lipids from tissue. Temperature (either heat or cold fracturing), chemical, and digestion/fermentation. The first two we consider to be common industrial approaches which are quick and efficient.  The digestion/fermentation of the liver is a natural process.  The process is not complicated, but does take time to complete.  It is simply an enzymatic and bacterial digestion of the liver releasing the oil.  Or in simplistic terms, this is the same process that takes place in one's digestive system.  The result is a light to dark brown oil that has hundreds of thousands of molecular structures bound within the fatty acid structures.  There are ways to lighten the oil but this would include adding preservatives to the vats (preventing the natural process), or running the product through a variety of bleaching or earthen material, which would cause stripping of the pigments and waxes. There is nothing new about fermented fish products.  They have been around for thousands of years and are readily available and consumed to great healthful benefit in many parts of the world, even today.

Further reading:

Fermenting of Cod Livers in to a Real Superfood
The fermentation of fish and fish by-products: fish sauces in ancient medicine and cuisine.
Historical Perspectives of Cod Liver Oil

Safety is always our first priority. Prior to bottling, food screen testing is completed multiple times on all of our products to ensure the safety of each lot.

We have not found nutritional differences in our medium to darker colored oils.  When we tested a variety of factors such as hormonal, bone healing, and toxicity through a biofeedback practitioner, the darker oil was slightly better when testing hormones, but it was not a statistical study from which to draw conclusions. There is a book from 1849 that includes some research on this topic: The Three Kinds of Cod Liver Oil.

The focus of the book was to study the 3 different types of Cod Liver Oil; Pale, Light Brown and Brown Cod Liver Oil. The author, L.J. DE Jongh MD, writes: "The brown Cod Liver Oil has proven itself a most powerful remedy in rheumatism and scrofula. Now, I have found, in my chemical analysis, a quantitative difference between this and the other sorts of Cod Liver Oil. The constituent parts, which exist in great proportions in the brown Cod Liver Oil, must, therefore, be considered as those which fulfill the most important indications. The neutral fat, the iodine, phosphorus, the inorganic salts, exist in the same proportions in the other kinds of oil, which are not supposed to be particularly efficacious in scrofula and rheumatism; it is, therefore, fair to assume that the brown Cod Liver Oil owes its great power to the biliary matter and butyric acid, which exist in it in much larger proportions than in the lighter-coloured [sic] oils."

We are aware that some people do experience digestive discomfort when they take the Fermented Cod Liver Oil or other fish oils. Unfortunately, we do not have a clear answer for this. A possible explanation maybe be allergies or intolerances, low bile secretion, etc. We suggest the customer stop taking Fermented Cod Liver Oil and check with a health practitioner.

Trans fats are naturally occurring at low levels. Fish meat, fish tissue and fish oils have trans fatty acids, which are part of their natural composition. Cod liver oil does have a small amount of natural trans fatty acids.

Read more about trans fatty acid in Fermented Cod Liver Oil: What Do The Scientists Say?  that addresses this question: "You have routinely had commercial analytical labs analyze samples of your fish oil. The data obtained did not show trans fatty acids, that is, if trans fatty acids did exist, they were present at a very low level. In general, fish oils may contain very low levels of trans fatty acids. Low levels of trans fatty acid may naturally present in bovine milk fat (0.6 - 3.9%) (MÃ¥nsson, 2008), beef meat (3.6%) (Woods & Fearon, 2009), and dairy creams (3.02 to 4.11g/100 g) (Jan et al., 2011). This may be the result of microbial hydrogenation of cis-unsaturated fatty acids in the stomach of ruminant animals (Bauman & Griinari, 2003)."€“ Subramaniam Sathivel, Ph.D. Also, please see the Scientific Analysis by Subramaniam Sathivel, Ph.D, who states that Small amounts of trans fatty acids are naturally occurring in fish, including cod liver oil.

The sea is loaded with vitamin D in the lowest base of the food chain in organisms such as phytoplankton, zooplankton, and related species. They have both vitamin D2 and D3 in a healthful supply. Fish do not produce vitamin D via the sun as humans do. There is very little known about the pathway of vitamin D in fish and their effects within the food chain. The theory is fish will accumulate vitamin D by eating those organism.

Further Reading

Fat-Soluble Vitamins, Especially Vitamin D Variation in Marine Fish

We do not have a specific focus on the fatty acids in our Fermented Cod Liver Oil. These fatty acids are not the focal point of the product.

Everyone takes different amounts of our products. To obtain an approximate content level of fatty acids, please use the following conversion to calculate.

5ml = 5g = 5,000mg = 1 tsp.

X = the amount of Fermented Cod Liver Oil product you take
Y = The approximate % of the fatty acid found within the product, which is 10%.
X mg x 10% [Y] = mg of intake

So , how many mg of DHA am I getting if I take 1 tsp of Fermented Cod Liver Oil each day?

5,000mg x 10% = 500mg of DHA per tsp.

It is possible for young children to have red lip or spots after taking cinnamon. Cinnamon can be a skin irritant. For further discussion: www.mamapedia.com and www.community.babycenter.com