Reconsidering Cod Liver Oil As A Good Natural Vitamin A Source

Kasper

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Before everybody thinks I'm just here to rant, troll and put noise here. No, I'm not. I do like Ray Peat, I do eat Ray inspired, I do like the thousand of post here such as from haidut and suikerbuik trying to explain the details of Ray Peat works.

If I agree, I just nod my head, and I don't feel really like posting something, but ... if I disagree, i feel more urge to post something, so therefore you may get the wrong impression that I'm only here to make noise. I think the +1 button should be reintroduced, so that people like me can express this nodding with the head in a digital way. :D

But enough of this girl talk, let me put forward my view here that may be controversial. I honestly believe that a good quality cod liver oil actually may be something very healthy to add to a diet, in fact I believe that it may be the second best way to get your natural source of vitamin A.

Personally, I don't mind so much supplementing, and I just use haidut's estroban, but for people that prefer the natural way, what are the practical ways of getting vitamin A in the diet ? I think most commonly people on a natural Ray Peat inspired diet get their vitamin A from egg yolks, liver and butter. I can't think of much other sources. As we try to limit PUFAs as much as possible most people here avoid cod liver oil. But let's look at the fact for a second:

* beef liver: 0.03 gram PUFA per 1000 IU vitamin A
* cod liver oil: 0.1 gram PUFA per 1000 IU vitamin A
* butter: 1.2 gram of PUFA per 1000 IU vitamin A
* egg yolks: 2.9 gram PUFA per 1000 IU vitamin A

This picture is quite clear if you ask me, beef liver wins in this contest, but cod liver oil is not doing that bad at all! If you would want to get 5000 IU of vitamin A all from cod liver oil, then you would still only get 0.5 gram of PUFA, true allmost all of this is omega 3 fatty acids, but for comparison, one oyster also contains 0.5 gram of omega 3. (Edit: all this cod liver oil data is from the one of green pasture).

So all in all, I think you cannot otherwise say than that cod liver oil is a good natural source of vitamin A and relatively low in PUFAs. I mean, don't eat cod liver oil as if it is butter of course, but from only 2.5 gram of cod liver oil, you get 5000 IU vitamin A, 1000 IU vitamin D and also quite some natural occuring quinones (from which part of it is vitamin K2 I guess). What could be wrong about that ?
 
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Ray Peat said:
Oh, umm, yes it's very high in vitamin A, if you don't have access to anything else...

Carry on...
 
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Kasper

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@Such_Saturation Do you think there are better vitamin A sources that I missed ?
 

jyb

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Kasper said:
@Such_Saturation Do you think there are better vitamin A sources that I missed ?

A retinol supplement? :lol: I assume that's purer than cod liver oil. It may be low pufa per capsule, but what about heavy metals...
 
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Kasper said:
@Such_Saturation Do you think there are better vitamin A sources that I missed ?

I think Ray Peat usually suggests beef liver, no? I remember that quote from a recent radio call.
 

yoshiesque

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even better than cod liver oil is this:

http://www.iherb.com/Carlson-Labs-A-D-2 ... Gels/14442

it has virtually no pufa and is concentrated form of vitamin A/D.

Also I find any higher vitamin D increases my vitamin D levels to levels that are not good for you.

So i take this 3x/week and it works. I know Danny Roddy has taken this (or still does) too.

It does have safflower oil in it, but its so small its insignificant. Where as Cod liver oil usually has enough to make up for some calories, this doesnt. It would be nice if they replaced it with MCT oil or something.
 

Henry

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Good post Kasper and thanks for rasing the point. Foods are always a trade off. With cod liver oil you get a little pufas, with liver you´ll load up on iron and other metals. Each food has its downside and benefits. I dont think PUFA is always the number one thing on the avoid list, other problematic nutrients should also be put into the calculation.
 

Zachs

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I think rancidity is a big issue along with contaminants like heavy metals and pcbs. Also most CLO companies do a lot of nasty stuff in the processing and basically have to add back retinol into the oil so your better off just buying a pure supplement.

If you live in Norway and get your CLO out of a bucket by your front door, it might be a viable option. Otherwise you really have no idea what you are ingesting.
 
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Liver iron is very easy to block, copper even easier if you were somehow inclined to doing that. Ironically we eat all this expensive muscle meat and take its iron for granted for some reason.
 

Parsifal

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Liver iron is very easy to block, copper even easier if you were somehow inclined to doing that. Ironically we eat all this expensive muscle meat and take its iron for granted for some reason.
How and why would you block iron?
 

dfspcc20

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You can do it by drinking coffee when you don't want to absorp so much iron.

Coffee just blocks non-heme iron, right? That would still be a significant portion of the iron in liver (~60%, according to Google).
 
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Coffee just blocks non-heme iron, right? That would still be a significant portion of the iron in liver (~60%, according to Google).

And it's much lower in muscle meat.
 

yurt

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Anyone thinking of using Green Pasture cod liver oil might like to check out Kaayla Daniel's article "Hook, Line and Stinker".
 

Kray

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I think rancidity is a big issue along with contaminants like heavy metals and pcbs. Also most CLO companies do a lot of nasty stuff in the processing and basically have to add back retinol into the oil so your better off just buying a pure supplement.

If you live in Norway and get your CLO out of a bucket by your front door, it might be a viable option. Otherwise you really have no idea what you are ingesting.

It's been a while since this post, but I found what seems to be a top-notch EVCLO. What do y'all think?
Rosita Real Foods™ - Rosita Real Foods EVCLO - FAQ
 

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