I was going to write about cod liver oil last Friday, but I decided that first explaining who Weston A. Price was would help me to emphasize why I so strongly recommend you try Green Pasture’s fermented cod liver oil/butter oil blend.

Now, you may know that I’ve actually always recommended cod liver oil. Just straight cod liver oil though – because that was before I learned about FERMENTED cod liver oil and its side kick, high vitamin butter oil.

And then once I heard about this particular product, I never stopped hearing about it. It seems as though everyone I follow (and let it be known that I follow lots of real food bloggers who don’t necessarily believe in heavy supplementation) feels it’s, like, the one essential supplement that they can’t do without – because it’s that good!

And you know what – since I already knew how great cod liver oil was and had been taking it for a long time – I believe them!

So anyway… remember how I told you about how good ol West Price went around studying primitive people and their diets, found zero incidences of degenerative disease, and also noticed how they were all stunningly handsome (and didn’t have acne)?

And also remember how, aside from the complete absence of modern processed foods, the common denominator he found with the diets of all these tribes (14 different groups of isolated people from completely different continents, by the way), was that their diets were particularly high in fat soluble vitamins – Vitamins A, D, Activator X (Vitamin K2)?

Well fermented cod liver oil is one of the best natural sources of all these nutrients, as well as precious Omega 3 fatty acids – all essential to healthy skin (and body, and brain, for that matter).

Omega 3s and Vitamin A are two nutrients that are especially awesome for calming and soothing the inflamed lining of the gut and as a result, leads to skin that is far less inflamed (the skin is very connected to the gut in this way).

What’s High Vitamin Butter Oil?

Dr. Price found that the vitamins in cod liver oil work synergistically with other important nutrients, and that its effectiveness was reduced if the taker was lacking those nutrients in his diet.

He particularly found that butter oil, made from the butter of cows eating fresh green grass in the spring, is full of Activator X (Vitamin K2), which works in beautiful concerto with the Vitamins A & D. Together, all three of these nutrients ensure proper assimilation of many minerals and water soluble vitamins in the diet, as well as the Omega 3s. Therefore, Price always gave his patients high vitamin butter oil along side the fermented cod liver oil.

Other foods and nutrients he found important for the assimilation of the nutrients in cod liver oil are grass fed butter, saturated fat, calcium, and magnesium (all of which you can get plenty of in a good ol’ traditional style diet from foods such as full fat animal foods, raw dairy, and bone broths).

And Why Fermented Cod Liver Oil?

Well, I’m annoyed to learn that even the supposedly “best” cod liver oils out there on the market (like Carlson’s and Nordic Naturals that I have always taken) aren’t actually that good… or natural! They might be much better than other brands, but the process of extraction from the cod liver is still pretty brutal (alkali refining, bleaching, winterization, and deoderization) and many of the vitamins have to be added back in.

I’ll interject here that I don’t feel that taking synthetic vitamins is usually of much help. I believe much more in using foods as supplements to get all the nutrients you need because the nutrients in real foods work together to be assimilated and used by the body. Synthetic vitamin pills are kind of useless in my opinion.

I don’t want my cod liver oil to just be another dumb, processed, synthetic supplement.

Back in the good ol’ days, they used to make cod liver oil by throwing all the fish guts in a barrel and fermenting it – eventually the oil would rise to the top. This process retains twice as many natural vitamins at double the level of any industrially extracted cod liver oil with excellent A to D ratios. Of course, this whole thing takes way too long for profits, so it’s been thrown by the wayside by nearly all the CLO companies in the world.

Unfortunately (or fortunately that someone does it at all) there is only ONE company in the world who does it this way today, and that is a company called Green Pastures.

Blue Ice Royal Cod Liver Oil/Butter Oil Blend

So, ever since I heard about this, I’ve been super keen to give it a try.

However, I hate to say it, but it’s an expensive supplement. Around $50 bucks a bottle that will last you anywhere from a month and a half to 3 months. And if you don’t live in the United States where it’s produced, the shipping charges are pretty sucky. And since shipping charges to Australia are sucky as it is, I figured I’d wait till I was back in Canada before getting my hands on some of this.

Howeveerrrr… if you’re turned off right now, remember that this stuff is potent, meaning you are getting WAY more bang for your buck than if you were buying other CLOS, and you can probably throw out a bunch of your other supplements to make way for this beauty of a product.

PS – if you’re still not convinced, go right now and read this article about Green Pastures CLO from some lovely ladies over at a blog called BeautyEditors.ca …. I bet it will certainly sway you to the benefits this stuff can have for your skin and your acne.

Anyway, I finally have some, and I am taking their cinnamon tingle flavoured cod liver oil/butter oil blend in the gel form. Generally I pretty much suck at saying for SURE whether something is definitely helping my skin or not (and I really haven’t been taking it that long), but I have been eating not fabulously for the last month or so and I have very little inflammation. So… that’s a good sign!

Flavours, Doses, Taking it, Etc

If you look around the internet, people generally say this stuff tastes gross. So you might be tempted to go for the capsules that they have available instead of the gel.

I would highly discourage it though because it’s not cost effective at all – apparently you need a LOT of the capsules to equal the same amount that you’d get if you were just taking a teaspoon of the gel per day (like.. 6 capsules or something).

So in that case… which flavour should you go for?

Well, it seems to be a consensus that cinnamon tingle is the best, so that’s what I got, and to be honest – it doesn’t taste like fish at all. I have detected not any fishiness. Nada. It kinda tastes like cinnamon hearts, and I take it right off the spoon, no problems.

If you still don’t like it though, you can always put it in a glass with water and swallow it down in a gulp.

And how much to take per day? The serving size on the bottle is 1/2 teaspoon, but if you can afford it, I believe 1 teaspoon per day is probably more effective. Note that this is considered a food, not a supplement, so there isn’t actually any RDA measures of the vitamins or anything.

And In Concluuuusion…

If you can afford it – try this stuff. There’s a good chance it could really, really help your skin and happiness levels to boot. I know it’s expensive, but if it can replace a ton of ineffective supplements you’re already taking, it will certainly be worth the money.

Do you take cod liver oil? Do you think you might try this brand?