Cod liver oil has a long and storied history and has played a key role in human health and survival for centuries.
This time of year, UVB rays of the sun, which produce vitamin D via the skin, are not reaching most of North America and even where I live in Florida, are only available for a brief window of time around noon if the skies are clear. Â Cod liver oil at this time is essential to maintaining health through the cold and flu season primarily by helping to keep vitamin D blood levels from falling to dangerously low levels.
Did you know that flu is really just a symptom of vitamin D deficiency the same as scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency disease? Surprising but true. Keeping your vitamin D blood levels optimal keeps that flu bug at bay very effectively.
Think that you don’t need cod liver oil because you already take a vitamin D supplement?
Reality Check:  Skip those vitamin D drops and pills. Taking a nutrient in isolation is rarely a good idea. Doing so treats vitamins like drugs.  This pseudo approach to health can cause systemic imbalances as nutrients are designed to be taken as food and in the case of cod liver oil, the vitamins A, D, and K are synergistically balanced by nature to prevent toxicity.  As far as I know, there is not a single case of vitamin D toxicity that resulted from taking cod liver oil!
Now for the really good news.
I’ve been recommending for some time to buy only the fermented cod liver oil and none of the others on the market. Â This is because the factories that produce cod liver oil in Europe are no longer using natural vitamin A and D in their product.
Cod liver oil made with synthetic vitamin A and D?  Seems implausible  and counterproductive, I know, but that is exactly what the European cod liver oil manufacturers are doing – most likely to improve profitability.
Only the fermented cod liver oil which is manufactured in Nebraska is currently produced using traditional methods with natural vitamin A/D still intact.
My recommendation to only buy the fermented cod liver oil still holds true, but with a caveat. Â I discovered at the Wise Traditions 2011 Conference recently that there is a limited supply of the Premier brand Quantum High Vitamin Cod Liver oil still left in the world. Â This cod liver oil is not fermented but still contains natural vitamin A and D.
This is the same high vitamin cod liver oil I took starting about 10 years ago when I first discovered the benefits of high vitamin cod liver oil as described and recommended by Dr. Weston A. Price DDS in his epic book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
If you find the fermented cod liver oil out of range of your budget or you cannot tolerate it for some reason, the Premier brand Quantum High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil would be an excellent alternative. Â But, act soon if you want some because when it sells out (there are about 3,000 bottles of capsules left), that’s it. Â It’s gone for good.
Where to Find Premier’s Quantum High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil
There is only one place to find this limited supply of Premier’s Quantum High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil and I am very pleased to tell you that they are a new sponsor of this blog – Radiant Life.
Click here to find out more about Radiant Life and how to order some of this limited edition Quantum High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil for yourself and your family.
Let’s all stay well through the winter!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources: Â Fish Livers in Ancient Medicine
Flu is Vitamin D Deficiency Disease
Great! It worked fine that time!
@ Angela – try again. The registration with Premier labs is immediate with no delay so you should be able to order right away.
Thanks for the post, but could you expand on this a bit?
“Did you know that flu is really just a symptom of vitamin D deficiency the same as scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency disease?”
Did you mean to say that supplementing with D strengthens your immune system making you better able to combat the viruses that cause the flu? If so then no worries, but if not could you provide a reference for that claim?
Separately I read an account by Vilhjalmur (sp?) Steffanson, called “Adventures in diet” (free online, short interesting read on all-meat diet) and he sort of “proofed” that scurvy wasn’t a result of vitamin C deficiency … well actually my memory may be hazy because he consumed plenty of offal and I’m pretty sure (can’t look around right now) that there’s some vitamin C there. What I do recall is that neither Steffanson nor any of the people in the document that also ate an all-meat diet ever got scurvy, while at the time it was believed that such a diet would always result in scurvy due to lack of plant matter and citrous fruits.
Anyway, please answer the vit d/flu question when you have a chance, thanks!
Hi iniQuity, click on the source at the bottom of the post and this will take you to much more information about how flu and vitamin D deficiency are related. Hope that helps.
Oh thanks, I missed that link!
Another quick q, currently I’m taking Healthy Origins Vit D 5000IU/gelcap along with Now Foods CLO (I think 650mg, if that makes sense, I know it’s 650 but can’t recall the unit) and I almost always take them in unison, almost daily. I’m youngish and I tend to forget but I say I average at the very least 4 days a week. Is this a decent enough approach for the time being? I may look into fermented CLO, but have enough of the above to last me through the winter since I bought in bulk. I’ll definitely continue to take them. I haven’t so much as had the sniffles for about two years now with the above combination so I’m inclined to think that it’s working quite well.
I don’t think I feel “stellar” though you know? so I wonder if the fermented, or purer, higher vitamin containing stuff would produce that. Theoretically it should, as better is better, but I wonder if it would be a truly noticeable difference. I’ll be finding out in my own time in the future, but curious.
If anybody has opinions please feel free to reply.
I’m trying to order it. I guess it takes 24 hours for them to approve my registration…… sheesh
The supply of Premier’s Quantum high vitamin cod liver oil is a limited supply, so if you want some, I would order soon or they will run out according to what I was told by the company. There won’t be anymore as the factory is not using natural vitamin A/D anymore. The fermented brand will be the only one at that point that will be worth taking.
Thank you for this! I get the fermented stuff for my son. Surprisingly, he has no problem with it. But I need something I can tolerate! =)
I received my cod liver oil last week. Do you know how long it might take for the benefits to start showing up? I am using the Green Pastures FCLO/Bo combination in the capsule.
I suppose it depends on the person. It takes a number of weeks for blood levels of vitamin D to rise to optimal levels. If they were quite low before – who knows? Everyone is different.
I know with me, I felt better immediately – had more energy for example. But then, I was pretty exhausted at the time 10 years ago with a very energetic and rough and tumble toddler (my first son) at the time who basically never stopped running and breaking things from the moment he woke up to when he dropped to sleep at night!!!! I was also pregnant, so anything nutritionally would have given me a huge boost.
I am taking large doses of FCLO for the bumps on the back of my arms (supposedly a result of vitamin A deficiency). After 2 months, they are slowly disappearing…so it can take some time, but it DOES replenish depleted nutrient stores.
Hi Sarah, I realized this evening that a tooth that has been hurting quite a bit has stopped hurting in the last day or so! Yeah!! I have another thing to thank you for. I don’t remember if I had thanked you about this specifically or not. After 8 years of hoping for another child God gave us one! I read a former post about skipping the vitamin K shot. I had not even thought about this since our first 2 children. So my husband and I did more research because of your blog and decided to skip the shot. Our dear very little girl at 4# 9 oz had a few complications from being so small. They were trying to draw blood from her for some lab work and her blood was already so thick that they could not get it out of her before it clotted. They felt this was due to her holding extra red blood cells trying to stay oxygenated enough and becoming jaundiced after birth as result (I hope I am conveying this correctly. We were pretty worried and parts are a blur!). I cannot imagine how much worse it may have been had we gotten the vitamin K shot. If it had not been for your blog I don’t know what may have happened to her. Thank you!!!!!!!
This is the brand of supplements that my doctor highly recommends. I didn’t realize they also made cod liver oil since we’ve been using the Green Pasture brand. Good to know for in the future!
Premier’s Quantum High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil is BACK! – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/cul7CxCz
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the great blog post today. I just bought Wilderness Naturals fermented cod liver oil for myself and my twin babies. Could you blog sometime about the recommended dosages of CLO for infants and adults? Also, I keep hearing about “high vitamin” CLO – is that different than regular CLO? Many thanks for all you do!
Great … glad to hear you’ve got some cod liver oil on the way.
High vitamin cod liver oil has higher levels of vitamin A and D than regular cod liver oil but about the same amount of EPA and DHA (the omega 3 fatty acids). Regular cod liver oil is not recommended as you have to take so much of it to get a decent dose of A/D that you would take too many omega 3 fats (EPA/DHA) as a result and this would not be beneficial to health.
Thanks. And I did find where you blogged about recommended dosages! For anyone else reading this, the link is https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2010/09/video-cod-liver-oil-101/. The only thing I did not get in this video is the recommended dosage for an infant. Wasn’t sure if that would be different than for an older child.