High five!
You’ve made some big changes in your family’s diet recently and are really focusing on eating organic. You’ve stopped buying boxed cereal and other processed snacks at the grocery store and are making homemade snacks and treats with wholesome ingredients instead. You’re even sprouting or soaking nuts and seeds and even your legumes and grains!
You’ve joined an organic fruit and veggie co-op and made the switch to grassfed locally produced meats. You’ve even taken the wise step of incorporating raw grassfed milk into your family’s diet.
While all these changes are wonderful and beneficial compared with how you’ve been eating, I’ve got some tough news for you.
These changes alone are not going to get you healthy.
Eating organic is not the way to health shocking as it may sound!
Gulp.
How can this be, you ask? Your diet is now light years ahead of where it was. How can this organic, whole foods diet not result in vibrant health?
Let me tell you a little story ….
The Telling Tale of the South Sea Islanders
The first Europeans to visit the South Sea Islands in the 1700’s were Captain Cook and his crew. Tahiti was truly a paradise with beautiful people whose frequent smiles revealed perfectly straight, pearly white teeth.
Dr. Weston A. Price found the same blissful environment nearly 200 years later when he arrived with his wife to study these happy, healthy people. Dr. Price noted that the bone structure of the South Sea Islanders was the most perfect of any of the 14 isolated traditional cultures he studied during his travels around the world in the 1920’s and 1930’s which he documented in the amazing book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
The traditional diet of the South Sea Islanders was high fat, consisting of seafood and pork with coconut the most important plant based staple.  Tropical fruits and other plants were also consumed as there were plenty available in such a temperate and ideal growing climate.
The environment and water were, of course, pristine and food was abundant.
Wouldn’t such an organic, whole foods diet be enough for health?
No, it was not.
The South Sea Islanders knew from observation and perhaps instinct that their clean, whole mixed diet was not enough to maintain their own health or to produce healthy babies and children.
The Sacred Food the South Sea Islanders Could Not Do Without
Despite having plenty of whole, nutrient dense foods available during all times of the year, the South Sea Islanders risked their lives over and over again to hunt sharks.
Once a shark was caught and brought to shore, the liver was removed and put inside the shark’s stomach which was then hung on a tree to ferment.
The oil that came out of the shark liver as it fermented provided a plethora of fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K2 to the South Sea Islander diet that was the critical missing link for vibrant health. This oil was given to growing children and young adults who were about to get married and also to pregnant women.  Such oil would have been critical to maintaining health into advanced age as well.
Dr. Price knew from research that the level of fat soluble activators in the South Sea Islander diet was about 10 times higher than the Americans of his day … and processed, devitalized foods had not even arrived in full force yet!
Fat Soluble Vitamins More Important Than Eating Organic
The story of the South Sea Islanders illustrates the critical nature of the fat soluble vitamins in the diet. Without them, no matter how pure, whole and organic a diet may be, health will not be maintained nor healthy children easily produced.
The fat soluble activators A, D, and K2 supercharge mineral absorption into the body tissues and enhance the health and function of every organ system.
Fortunately, fermented cod liver oil and fermented skate liver oil are available today that are very similar to the fermented shark liver oil consumed by the South Sea Islanders.
Please note that the typical brand name fish or krill oil and even cod liver oils on the market are highly processed, industrialized, rancid, deodorized oils that should be avoided. Â Only fermented cod and skate liver oil is processed with no heat as practiced by traditional cultures.
I have been taking these types of oils for many years and would never consider my whole foods diet complete without them. Why reinvent the wheel and experiment with the latest and greatest silver bullet supplements that seem to change every few months when traditional cultures such as the South Sea Islanders already knew what it took to have healthy babies and stay vibrantly healthy well into old age?
Where to Source Fermented Fish Liver Oils
Please refer to my Resources page for a list of companies that offer clean, purified fermented fish liver oils to provide your whole foods diet with the critical fat soluble activators A, D, and K2.
What to Do if You are Allergic to Fish
If fermented cod or skate liver oil aren’t possible for you due to a seafood allergy, note that you can obtain fat soluble vitamins in other foods valued by other Traditional cultures such as raw, grassfed butter (must be deep yellow to orange in color – sources), fish eggs (many can tolerate fish eggs even with a seafood allergy), emu oil from emus eating their native diet (sources), deep orange yolks from pastured hens, and liver from land based animals.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source:Â Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Weston A. Price DDS
Sarah, any recommendations for cookbooks beside nourishing trad and grassfed gourmet? I just got a whole cow and need some good recipes as we will be eating meat everyday in 2013!
could not agree more.
If you can afford to eat nutrient dense AND clean, then do so. Most do not have the budget for this, so always choose nutrient dense over organic if necessary,
Maybe the whole foods diet was enough an the dumb island people risked thr life for no reason. What does this have to do with organics? Again, another worthless article. Why don’t you read another book and start another ridiculous blog that clearly indicates you have no idea what your talking about.
Ps: take a creative writing course!
I live in South Africa. Where do I find fermented cod liver oil?
Hi Sarah,
Thanks again for all the great info. For the Beef liver that you told someone to eat. Raw or Cooked? And I understand about needing these vitamins in the diet, but I would be interested to know how those cultures that could not get shark or even ocean fish get this vitamins? Such as the Native Americans. Does the Price Book address this?
Comment/info: I have had my Vitamin D checked and it is very normal. I do not eat any of fermented oils that you are suggesting. I do eat healthy, raw milk, good meats, eggs, fruits veggies, ect. Two things that I do do that others might be interested in, that Dr. Mercola talks about regarding Vit. D, are 1. I very, Very rarely wear sunscreen less than 1/2 dozen times in over a decade. (I have been check by a Dermo.. and my skin is fine) and 2. I do not wash with soap and water all over my body after I have been in the sun for a good period of time (I only use soap in the “important areas”). Apparently when your skin is exposed to sun it makes a vit D oil on your skin that takes up to 48 hours for your body to absorb and if you go out in the sun and then take a good soapy shower all over you just was that oil off and no Vit D. for you. My husband showers with soap twice a day and his levels are low. He takes a supplement.
Thanks again and keep the good stuff coming.
Tricia
For some reason comments showing up in my mail are not showing up here. Anyway, someone said that kids should not be punished or rewarded. Maybe I missed something, since I didn’t see reference to that.
As for kids eating a balanced diet if left on their own. I can agree somewhat. First of all, it depends on what they are being given and eating. Once they get too much junk food, it’s hard to get them to want anything. I’ve personally done this experiement with my grandson. I’ve proven it to myself over and over. I will put a plate with say, beets, green beans, meatloaf, (grassfed) a little bit of potato and a homemade cookie or some other little sweet that I know is healthy. Everyone thinks I’m nuts. I might also just use fruit for the sweet. I’ve found that he will eat everything on his plate. He might start with the sweet, but it seems to make him so happy, he just continues on with the whole plate. Now, if I give him the plate with no sweet, but promise him the sweet when he is done, then that’s all he can think about, and while he may eat some, he will keep pushing it around his plate. Although, as I said at the beginning, this will not work if he knows his mommy is showing up with the usual amount of junkfood that she likes to buy. Luckily he lives with me and I have quite a bit of control over this.
As for parents forcing their kids to eat, well, I do insist that he taste things. I don’t punish, but I do encourage him strongly. Like, oh come on, just taste it, just one bite and tell me what you thing. With a 2 or 3 yr old it’s hit or miss. I have good luck with that one. But I don’t think it’s wise to get them to eat more when they are full just to have an empty plate. I was forced a lot as a child, (don’t get an olive near me) and I was anorexic for many years. To this day I struggle to eat. I like food, but it for some reason is not something I remember to do. It threw off my blood sugars, metabolism, and my vitamin D was 12. So, I do think kids should be encouraged to taste and test things, but telling them they can’t get up for three hours or any kind of punishment is not going to make them like it. Tastes change and develop over time, we must allow room for that.
Great comment. I wholeheartedly agree. I actually made a reply to the post you were referring to. Try hitting (ctrl + F) on your keyboard and type in “Kimlyn” which is the name of the person who posted the comment about how to feed children the oil, and you should be able to find the post, and can scroll down from there.
I also had unpleasant mealtimes as a child, either being punished, forced, or guilted into eating foods I just couldn’t eat, and I struggled for years after that with no appetite and became severely underweight. When I became independent in choosing what I got to eat, I started to seek out wholesome foods that I would have never eaten as a kid. Great comment: tastes change and develop. Parents and kids, nothing ever stays the same! If a kid won’t take it one day, one day, they might see this article and decide to take it! Thanks for this great comment!
Sarah,
When shopping at stores, what should I look for when purchasing the right/healthiest sour dough bread? I am able to shop at co-ops, Whole Foods – I don’t go there often 😉 – and Trader Joe’s.
Thanks!
I look for naturally fermented sourdough. I read that somewhere, and I’m not sure what else. For myself, I also check the ingredients, since I don’t want canola or soy of any kind in my products.