Is Norwegian cod liver oil the best in the world?
No other place on earth offers such splendid conditions for making superior quality cod-liver oil as the coast of northern Norway. This is the birthplace and home of cod liver oil and the people here know more about true cod liver oil than anyone, anywhere else on this planet.
However, things have changed. Although Norway is still a remote and untouched land, our technological world has unfortunately had a negative impact on the quality of many cod liver oils. Other brands of commercial cod liver oils now commonly undergo intensive refining and processing to produce refined, bleached, deodorized and tasteless oils. Beneficial oil-soluble “minor ingredients” which should remain in the oil are removed by intensive refining. Some of the molecules present in these other brands of commercial oils change from being in a natural and beneficial form to an unnatural and possibly toxic form. Fat-soluble vitamins are typically destroyed during this processing. The result is a derivative cod liver oil which is not the same as the parent/real cod liver oil. This is akin to the way that the fuels used to power our motor vehicles are simply derivatives of naturally occurring, unprocessed crude oil found beneath the Earth’s surface. The crude oils and fuels derived from them are both very different.
Here’s more information on Rosita®’s process versus how other commercial “natural” cod liver oil is made.
Other “natural” cod liver oil:
Even more worrying is the fact that 95% of all “Norwegian” fish oils sold on the Norwegian market today actually come from Chile and Peru! This also means that many of the foreign companies that think they are selling Norwegian oils are not. There are only four main factories in Norway that produce cod liver oil. They produce cod liver oil for about two months during the winter season (approximately 400 tons) and store this oil in tanks. The livers used to produce their oils are actually a mixture of farmed and fresh livers. Some of these livers are also sold frozen, in bulk, to cod liver oil manufacturers in Norway and to foreigners abroad.
The cod liver oil a consumer purchases may be between 1 to 2 years old! The oil sitting in these containers has to be refined before being sold because it has already gone bad and the reason it has gone bad is because cod liver oil is one of the most unstable fish liver oils. You simply cannot let cod liver oil sit for long periods of time and to retain its freshness. After these cod liver oils are refined, they then add back the vitamins lost through the refining process via the use of synthetic vitamins like vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), etc.
We at Rosita® feel strongly about these deceitful practices. It’s one of the primary factors that prompted us to create, for the very first time, the genuine raw Norwegian cod liver oil that our ancestors made and consumed.
Will your cod liver oil be affected by the radiation from the Japanese nuclear accident that’s covering the Pacific Ocean?
The fishing grounds used by Rosita® for sustainably harvesting wild cod are very distant from Japan. Regular monitoring has shown that Rosita® products are not at any risk of radiation.
This is another reason why it’s so important for a company that produces fish oils to harvest their own fish. This ensures the source of their cod livers is always from safe fishing grounds. It is even more important when you consider the fact cod species are found in many of the world’s oceans and some fresh waters, too.
Will you offer cod liver oil with flavoring?
Rosita® Extra Virgin Cod Liver OIl does not contain any flavorings, nor do we plan on adding them in the future. The taste varies with the seasons and other biological factors. In general, it has a robust, fresh fish taste and is easy to take even for children. For those who would rather avoid the taste of fresh fish oil, we also offer Rosita® Extra Virgin Cod Liver Oil in softgels. We want to be true to our ancestors, who never consumed marine oils with added flavorings. The same holds true for many of the hunter-gatherer cultures.
What color is the actual liver oil contained in a living wild codfish?
Fresh codfish liver oil is a pale golden color
Imagine there is a tap connected to the liver of a living wild codfish that is freely swimming in the deep ocean. If you turned on this tap, the raw oil that would come out of it would be a pale golden color.
The real oil which is contained in the cells of fresh codfish liver is pale golden-colored and at times nearly colorless. It will also be anywhere from clear to cloudy in appearance, depending on a number of biological factors. This should not be confused with the pale oils obtained by refining which are very different.