cows on pasture-shawnabarrIt’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Seeing is believing.

So much has been written about the controversy (or scandal, as some people refer to it) over fermented cod liver oil, that seeing and hearing key participants lends a whole new dimension to the story that won’t go away. It helps explain, in a way written commentary such as what I’ve provided on this blog, why so many people are so troubled about this entire episode.

Ann Marie Michaels, otherwise known as Cheeseslave, did interviews with several of those close to various aspects of this story. Perhaps because a couple months have passed since the story first broke about health concerns over the Green Pasture FCLO, but a number of new nuggets (at least to me) came out in Ann Marie Michaels’ interviews. I strongly encourage readers to review the videos themselves, but in the meantime, here are some items about FCLO-new revelations:

From Kaayla Daniel

From Kaayla Daniel, the former Weston A. Price Foundation vice president, and author of the report that broke open the FCLO concerns, came a revelation that perhaps begins to explain the closeness of the relationship between Green Pasture owner Dave Wetzel and Weston A. Price Foundation founder and president Sally Fallon Morell.

One big question that has pervaded the rancor over the Green Pasture fermented cod liver oil is this: What other favors were possibly exchanging hands in order for Green Pasture to receive what always seemed to WAPF sponsors to be its preferential treatment  compared with other sponsors? Fallon Morell said early on that aside from hefty sponsor fees and a small amount of independent product sales, she didn’t make money personally off the arrangement that created so much discord.

There may have been at least one exception. Daniel, in her interview with Michaels, says that Dave Wetzel personally drove two dairy cows from his farm in Nebraska to her dairy in Brandywine, MD. (Daniel refers to it, at the 43-minute mark of the interview, as “a generous gift, not necessarily corruption.”)  According to an online request for shipping services from Nebraska, this happened in late 2010 and early 2011. The raw milk part of my mind wonders: Are those two cows from the GP FCLO headquarters now providing milk to Maryland residents?

I emailed both Fallon Morell and Wetzel asking if they could explain this situation further, but neither responded.

For Daniel, the FCLO outcry, and her excommunication from the WAPF, has been a financial disaster. “About one-third of my income came from WAPF. I am really hurting from the loss of that income….This is a big hit for me financially.”  She again denied that she makes money from sale of any brand of cod liver oil.

From Cathy Raymond

From Cathy Raymond comes a startling, and sad, tale of trust badly rewarded. Raymond was a conference organizer for the Weston A. Price Foundation for nine conferences and later also for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, for five years. Raymond recounts in her Cheeseslave interview how she was forced out by both WAPF and FTCLDF—she thinks because she had offended Fallon Morell for trying to involve Paleo representatives in WAPF functions— and wound up homeless, spending some of the little money she had on Green Pasture fermented cod liver oil. (In comments following my previous post, Raymond and John Moody of the FTCLDF present differing accounts of her departure from FTCLDF; Moody says she received an offer and never made a counter-offer; Raymond says the offer was a non-starter.)

As 2014 and 2015 went on, a small rash spread through her entire body, sparing only her hands, feet, and face. “I thought my body is going through a stressful time, and I need more of that (FCLO). “ She finally discovered, during a consult with a dermatologist, after months of agony from the rash, that it was likely the FCLO had caused the rash. Likely because, when she discontinued the FCLO, her rash gradually disappeared.

Now, she’s helping organize the new Paleo-Primal-Price Foundation and its first annual conference Nov. 21-22.

From John Moody and Chris Masterjohn

In recent days, two of the more notable defenders of Green Pasture (aside from Sally Fallon Morell and Dave Wetzel) have suggested they have more serious concerns about the safety of fermented cod liver oil than previously revealed.

From John Moody, executive director of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, who has been a staunch defender of Green Pasture, WAPF, and Sally Fallon Morell, came this revelation today during a heated exchange with me on Facebook. He stated to me at one point:

“Because if you had even asked basics, you would see that based solely on KDs  (Kaayla Daniel’s) personal talk with me months ago and my friendship with RS (Ron Schmid), our buying club stopped ordering from GP (Green Pasture) long before 95% of people were informed.”

How’s that? He removed Green Pasture FCLO from his Kentucky food club’s offerings because he was worried about its safety? “I stopped ordering AFTER I spoke with Kaayla,” Moody responded. “Because I was open to thoughtful concerns, not the witch hunt that this has become.”

I responded that if Moody had revealed his safety concerns previously and I had somehow missed them, then I owed him an apology. He didn’t answer me, and I’ve not been able to find anything mentioning his decisive precautionary move on behalf of his food club members, way ahead of all other distributors, in any of his comments lambasting me and others who raised safety concerns about FCLO.

Moody’s revelation comes on the heels of a declaration by Chris Masterjohn, a nutritionist and also a defender of GP, a week ago, also on Facebook.  “I think many people could negatively react to the biogenic amines in the FCLO. I don’t think this would cause HUS, but do believe it could cause heart palpitations, rashes, and gastrointestinal upset. I think a brief perusal of the topic of amine intolerance would show that this is a food intolerance issue, and not a a reasonable means of declaring foods that contain biogenic amines to be intrinsically toxic.”

Other interviews related to FCLO conducted by Michaels include one of Ron Schmid, the naturopathic doctor; one of Archie Welch, a co-founder of supplement seller Corganic; one of Steve Tallent, president of Beeyoutiful.com, a supplement and beauty product supplier; and one of me. Each makes for fascinating listening.  All these individuals, including Ann Marie Michaels, will be at the first annual conference of the Paleo-Primal-Price Foundation Nov. 21-22, where early-bird pricing has been extended.