I recently saw the award-winning documentary My Big Fat Diet.  It’s a film focusing on the work of Dr. Jay Wortman, a Canadian physician studying the impact of traditional, low-carbohydrate diets on the health of First Nations communities, with a particular focus on diabetes and overweight.  The film is by Mary Bissel, co-produced with Barb Cranmer of the Namgis First Nation and Christian Bruyere of Mystique Films in association with CBC Newsworld.  It documents Dr. Wortman’s study in which members of the Namgis community of Alert Bay, British Columbia spent a year eating a low-carbohydrate diet somewhat similar to a traditional diet of that region.  The project was a resounding success, with significant weight reductions.  (You can read more here about Dr. Wortman’s personal and professional journey that led to the creation of this film.  It’s a great read.)

Oolichan grease was an important component of the diet used in this study.  Oolichan grease is a traditional food of First Nations communities in the Northwest, particularly coastal British Columbia.  Through a large-scale process of boiling and fermentation, the grease is traditionally extracted from Thaleichthys pacificus, the small oolichan or eulachon fish (also: ooligan, hooligan, candle fish, candlefish, or t’lina). 

One line in the film struck me in particular.  A participant in the study reflects, “My grandfather used to tell me that the yellow color in the grease is our sunshine in the wintertime when there’s hardly any sunlight.”  

I was watching the film with a friend, and we looked at each other, jaws dropped.  Haven’t you heard something like this before?  First, doesn’t it sound an awful lot like taking cod liver oil in the winter for vitamin D3, a vitamin which comes from sunshine and which we can’t get in the winter?  The other thing that struck me was prizing the yellow color; this reminded me of how spring and autumn butter, as Weston Price observed, was valued for its yellow color -- and, although people didn’t know it, its high vitamin K2 (menaquinone-4) content.  The yellow in both the butter and the grease is from vitamin A, but high vitamin A is often found in the same foods as other fat soluble vitamins.

So, does oolichan grease contain these important nutrients?  I set out to learn more about the nutritional content of oolichan grease and the role a return to a traditional diet can play in health and wellness.

First of all, I’m not at all surprised that a traditional-ish diet that included a traditional food like oolichan grease was so beneficial.  Weston Price, in his classic work Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, demonstrated that cultures around the world have carefully over time selected and created traditional diets with an optimal intake of protective foods.  Historically, in culture after culture, traditional diets have been replaced with a modern diet of refined foods like flour, sugar, and vegetable oil.  Traditional cooking and eating have declined.  As Weston Price showed in his dental and health studies, and as we see today with high rates of diabetes, obesity, cancer, and other diseases of civilization, this shift in diet, coupled with other circumstantial changes, has been disastrous.  We’ve all lost foods our ancestors knew were important, and gained poor substitutes in their place.

Price also demonstrated that a carefully chosen regimen of wholesome foods, particularly those with animal/fish fats and fat-soluble vitamins like A (retinol), D3 and K2 (menaquinone-4), could halt and even reverse declines in dental health and other degeneration.  Traditional diets are healthful not only because they cut out detrimental modern foods, but because they incorporate the carefully selected and developed protective foods people long ago realized were important.

Other studies have also shown the positive nutritional impact when indigenous communities choose to revert to a more traditional diet.  Dr. Harriet Kuhnlein, who, incidentally, is responsible for a good portion of the research available on the nutritional profile of oolichan grease, also published a paper (full text available here) on an intervention program that improved vitamin A and iron status via a traditional diet.

In choosing traditional foods, it’s key to look at what foods people valued highly.  These foods often turn out to be the most nutrient-rich components of a diet.  Oolichan grease fits the bill.  Historically, oolichan grease was highly revered and prized, sparking complex trading routes, still referred to as grease trails, several hundred miles inland from the B.C. coast.  Whatever was in this strong-smelling, yellow fat, people knew it was an important component of diet.  In some regions, oolichan grease comprised up to half of the calories in the diet.

In her research during the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Kuhnlein began analyzing the nutritional makeup of oolichan grease.  In her 1982 and 1996 studies (she has another study from 1998 that I haven’t yet been able to access), Kuhnlein demonstrated that oolichan grease is extremely rich in vitamins A and E.  She identified significant vitamin K, although her research noted it as K1, phyllaquinone, which is a form found in plants as well as some fish, rather than the optimal K2, menaquinone-4, the typical animal form. However, I wonder if further examination would reveal meanquinone-4 as well.  In this initial research, she also found high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. 

Dr. Kuhnlein has some other interesting papers on traditional diets, including this one about the relationship between vitamin A levels and consumption of traditional foods among Canadian Inuit.  In a 2004 paper, she shows that a number of traditional foods of Arctic communities provided adequate vitamins A, D, and E, but that reduced consumption of those foods to present day levels leaves the same communities deficient in these vitamins.

Dr. Wortman, featured in My Big Fat Diet, also recently published this very interesting paper about oolichan grease.  He analyzed the fatty acid profile of both fresh (frozen) oolichan fish and of oolichan grease.  A few highlights of his paper stood out to me:

1. -The fatty acid profile of oolichan grease is very similar to human fat (adipose tissue): about 30% saturated fat and 55% monounsaturated fat, with very low omega-6 fatty acids.  Dr. Kuhnlein found about 32% and 65% respectively in her earlier research.
   

2. -The process of fermenting and rendering oolichan grease from oolichan fish decreased the omega-3 content.
   

3. -The omega-3 content isn’t particularly high, compared to omega-3 rich foods like salmon, but given that oolichan grease once made up such a large proportion of a traditional diet, this makes sense.  Eating it in high quantity would yield a much safer level of omega-3 fatty acids than if it were richer in these.  While his finding in omega-3 content departs from that of Dr. Kuhnlein, who found higher levels, he demonstrates that the fermentation process reduces this type of fatty acid, and he uses thin-layer chromatography to break down the specific fats in great detail.
   

4. -Oolichan grease contains significant quantities of squalene, a substance found in human skin
   

5. -Oolichan grease was developed to optimize both nutrition and use.  The fermentation and boiling process made the oil last longer, so it could be kept throughout the year and traded far and wide.
   

I contacted Dr. Wortman to ask if he’s aware of anyone yet looking into the vitamin D3 and K2 status of eulachon grease.  He doesn’t believe analysis has yet been done, but the question is on his radar and Dr. Kuhnlein’s. 

I’d hypothesize that oolichan grease has both K2 (menaquinone-4) and D3, and that probably, like the EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids, both are at low enough levels where a high traditional intake would have provided adequate amounts of these vitamins.  This is just a guess on my part, but there are reasons other than the line from the film that struck me.  A number of other fatty fish have vitamin K2 menaquinone=4 as well as D3 in their organs.  In the case of oolichan grease, fermentation might also enhance the extraction of the vitamins into the oil.  On the other hand, oolichan grease may have been valuable even without these vitamins since fatty fish also have other benefits, like increasing bioavailability of nutrients in foods.  Also, as Dr. Kuhnlein demonstrated, albeit in a study of people living further north, vitamin D and other fat-soluble vitamins were available in a number of other traditional foods, like marine and land mammals, animal fats, fish flesh and eggs, and liver.

No food is a panacea.  Even the foods that cultures have prized the most, like butter, organ meats, fish, fish eggs, and oolichan grease, are eaten in concert with other foods to make up a wholesome and delicious diet.  Although one food doesn’t necessarily have to have all the fat-soluble vitamins to be beneficial, it’s important to keep in mind that we tend to use vitamins, fats, and minerals most effectively when they’re eaten in traditional combinations.  Historically, our cultures have sought out optimal foods, preparations, and combinations.  When a culture prizes a food to the extent that cultures have prized oolichan grease, it’s a good bet to pay attention and find out why.

So, is there more to learn about oolichan grease? That line about “sunshine in winter” is sticking with me. I’m very curious to find out more.

Note:

If you’re in the Seattle area, a few of us are interested in asking one of the local, independent movie theaters to show My Big Fat Diet.  If you’d like to add your voice or organization or community to that request, please email me or leave a comment here.

Additional resources:

This piece on ooligan grease from the Weston A. Price Foundation website is pretty comprehensive and very interesting.

One of the film’s collaborators, Barb Cranmer, also directed an interesting-looking film about oolichan grease which I haven’t seen yet called T’Lina: The Rendering of Wealth.

You can read more about traditional uses of oolichan (with pictures) here, see pictures of the process here.

Jude Isabella’s article on some of the history of fishing in British Columbia, including a focus on oolichan grease.

More on eulachon fishery and decline in this article.

NOTE 2/3/09: If you are another blogger and you would like to use some otherwise hard-to-find information or ideas sourced from this or other entries, such as the research about vitamin K2 menaquinone 4 in fish organs, please credit your source in your post.  I am happy to share and spread information, especially when it is credited appropriately.  Thank you!

Thanks to samantha lundin thom for the flickr CC photo.