RFQM – Traditional Method for Cod Liver Oil

For today’s Real Food Quote Monday (RFQM), I’m sharing from the Spring 2009 issue of Wise Traditions, the quarterly publication of the Weston A. Price Foundation. This is from the article entitled, “Update on Cod Liver Oil Manufacture” by David C. Wetzel. Mr. Wetzel is the founder of the company Green Pasture Products, which manufactures fermented high-vitamin cod liver oil and high-vitamin butter oil.

Hey! Did you notice I linked to the article from which I’m about to quote? That is because the WAPF redid their website, getting most journal articles online! Very good news for non-members who don’t get the Journal in the mail.

The quote is lengthy, but fascinating. And actually, in this quote, Mr. Wetzel is quoting from F. Peckel Möller in an article entitled “Cod-Liver Oil and Chemistry,” published in London, 1895. He describes the traditional method for extracting cod liver oil.

“The primitive method. . . is as follows. As soon as the fishermen reach the Voer [pier], and finish separating the livers and roes, they sell the fish and carry the livers and roes up to their dwellings. In front of these are ranged a number of empty barrels into which the livers and roes are placed, separately of course. The fishermen do not trouble to separate the gall-bladder from the liver, but simply stow away the proceeds of each day’s fishing, and repeat the process every time they return from the sea, until a barrel is full, when it is headed up and a fresh one commenced. This is continued up to the end of the season, when the men return home, taking with them the barrels that they have filled. The first of these, it may be noted, date from January, and the last from the beginning of April, and as on their arrival at their homes the fishermen have many things to arrange and settle, they seldom find time to open their liver barrels before the month of May. By this time the livers are, of course, in an advanced state of putrefaction. The process of disintegration results in the bursting of the walls of the hepatic cells and the escape of a certain proportion of the oil. This rises to the top, and is drawn off.

“Provided that not more than two or three weeks have elapsed from the closing of the barrel . . . to its being opened, and if during that time the weather has not been too mild, the oil is of a light yellow colour, and is termed raw medicinal oil. As may be supposed, however, very little oil of this quality is obtained. Indeed, as a rule there is so little of it that the fishermen do not take the trouble to collect it separately. Nearly all the barrels yield an oil of a more or less deep yellow to brownish colour: this is drawn off, and the livers are left to undergo further putrefaction. When a sufficient quantity of oil has again risen to the surface, the skimming is repeated, and this process is continued until the oil becomes a certain shade of brown. The product collected up to this point is known as pale oil. . . . By this time the month of June has generally been reached, and with the warmer weather the putrefaction is considerably accelerated, and the oil now drawn off is of a dark brown colour, and is collected by itself. It is rather misleadingly called light brown oil. . . When no more can be squeezed out, the remainder is thrown into an iron caldron and heated over an open fire. By this process, the last rests of oil are extracted from the hepatic tissues, which float about in the oil like hard resinous masses. . . . In order to fully carry out the extraction, it is necessary to raise the temperature considerably above the boiling point of water. . . . The oil prepared in this way is very dark, almost black, and with a greenish fluorescence in reflected light. In thin layers and by transmitted light it shows a brown colour, and it is therefore termed brown oil. . .”

David Wetzel wrote, “After reading this passage, and foreseeing the demise of the last natural cod liver oil from Europe, I was determined to produce a light brown fermented cod liver oil according to the old methods.”

And that’s what he did, under the Green Pasture’s brand.

“The method we have developed processes the cod liver oil through a proprietary non-heating natural lacto-fermentation. The process can take up to six months and is carefully handled throughout the process to ensure the oil is clean and natural.”

The article tells much more about his “factory” in Nebraska and is a follow-up to the original article in the Spring of 2005, “Cod Liver Oil Manufacturing.”

What do you think? Hopefully that doesn’t scare you off cod liver oil! I love reading passages like this that share how things were done way back when…