We’re still getting a lot of questions about the safety of fermented cod liver oil following the 2015 accusations of Kaayla Daniel about fermented cod liver oil (fclo) that we’d like to address. You can access this report here (note that you need to subscribe to her website to receive this) although in brief, the report states that fermented cod liver oil :
- Is rancid/putrid
- Contains trans-fats
- Has little/no vitamin D
- Isn’t even made from cod
Here’s what the SCIENCE has to say about these accusations. This may get a bit technical in parts. The bold conclusions throughout this will give you the low down if you’d like a speedy read.
Is fermented cod liver oil rancid?
Firstly, the word rancid isn’t a scientific term. Measuring toxicity from rotting/decomposition would give a scientific measure of “rancidity”.
In response to Daniel’s accusations Green Pasture had their products independently tested with a detailed description of the testing procedures. The results clearly show there was no rotting cod at all. Looking through Daniel’s report it’s also apparent that she also had no basis for coming to her “rancid” conclusion…anisidine, peroxide, and total oxidation measures were all fine. The only measure that she used to come to her conclusion was the high levels of free fatty acids. Craig Elding from www.thehealthcloud.co.uk wrote a great piece simplifying this finding. The bottom line is that free fatty acids are caused from fats being digested – they aren’t toxic so what’s the big deal?
There is no evidence that fclo is rancid. Tests clearly show that the products are non-toxic.
FLCO contains trans-fats
In Daniel’s infamous lab tests one of the samples (interesting that it was only one sample) had significant amounts of trans-fats. She suggested that heated vegetable oil had been added to the oil. This is a serious accusation – and one that just doesn’t fit with the company or their values. Trans-fats are naturally found in meat, milk, and cheese, and although we hear a lot of negative press about them, some are actually healthy such as CLA. Some natural trans-fats are likely to be produced by the fermentation process. Is this a problem? – we don’t think so.
It is highly unlikely that poor quality oils have been added to the products. The trans-fats that are present aren’t a problem
FLCO has little to no vitamin D
In Daniel’s report vitamin D levels came in at a low 17.6IU/gm. This is far lower than Green Pasture’s reported 310-1030IU/gm. Vitamin D levels are notoriously difficult to measure in the laboratory. Different tests will give different measures. What tests did the labs use? The labs in Daniel’s report were anonymous and didn’t reveal what tests they used. This makes interpreting the data very difficult. We’re not comparing apples to apples. Green Pasture use a rat bio assay to measure the effectiveness of their vitamin D and have routinely published their results. Rats are fed cod liver oil and their blood vitamin D levels are measured. Ideally you’d do this with humans, but you’d need to keep them out of sunlight and only feed them cod liver oil, which wouldn’t be a great experiment to be part of. Ideally the other labs would have used the same rat bio assay test to measure vitamin D levels.
Until more tests are done there is no good evidence to dispute the levels of vitamin D in fclo.
Cod liver oil isn’t made from cod
The Daniel’s report claims that other fish species were being used – she suggests cheap antibiotic-fed Chinese farmed fish (another flaming accusation). Daniel’s tests showed no trace of antibiotics in the samples so this accusation doesn’t make sense. She suggests that Alaskan Pollock rather than cod was present in some species. All fish species in Daniel’s tests are commonly found and caught in the Northern Pacific Ocean so there is no evidence at all suggesting farmed fish are used in fclo. Alaskan Pollock is a species of cod – so this point is pointless! The diagram below courtesy of www.thehealthcloud.co.uk shows the relationship between the species of cod.
Fclo is of course made from cod livers
In our view, the Daniel’s report is an opinion paper that had the conclusion written with little regard to what the evidence suggested. It was an attack on Green Pasture and the Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF). To read the report you are required to supply your email address for marketing purposes. Not surprisingly Kaayla Daniel has left WAPF and started her own foundation – which will no doubt be funding her own commercial endeavours.
We’d like to thank you for your past business and also for taking the time to look beneath the sensationalist blogging to examine the evidence.
As always we are open to any questions about the safety and effectiveness of our products. Please be assured that I would never recommend any products that I wouldn’t use myself.
Yours in health
Dave Liow