How Fish Oil Is Manufactured

If you love non vegetarian cuisine then nothing can be healthier than fish and fish food products. They are easily available and highly affordable these days. Fish contain fatty acids and have several ingredients which protect your body against various diseases. The extract of fish is called fish oil and it has many health benefits. It is highly recommended for various diseases and conditions.

It is for instance recommended for the people suffering from arthritis. The nutrients obtained from the fish and fish products are also essential for the normal growth of your body and are recommended for growing bodies of kids and youngsters. Certain vitamins which cannot be synthesized by human body naturally can be also obtained from fish and fish products.

How Do They Make Fish Oil?

Fish and cod liver oils are known for their medicinal properties. They are used extensively in making medicines and other medicated drugs and syrups. Refined fish oil is produced in factories by removing the phospho-lipid content from the oil and removing other excretions of other innate aquatic worms.

Acid clay can be added to remove the pungent smell from the fish oil thoroughly and can be preserved for a long time. The process adopted for extracting the oil is called fermentation. The oil is heated and stirred to let the water content in the mixture evaporate. More than 60 percent of the mixture contains water as fish has an aquatic habitat. Ten to twenty percent of the mixture obtained from the fish body contains by-products which have to be removed temporarily and can be used for manufacturing other products apart from fish oil.

Once water and phospholipids are removed the residue that remains contains mostly fish oil. Little of caustic soda is added and then it is vacuumized using specific vacuum techniques. It is then dehydrated using dehydration techniques. Later on, deodorizing helps remove the bitter and pungent smell which makes withstanding the smell difficult. It is then preserved in an air tight container.

The acid and PH value is then tested and if it is found to be normal, it can be packed in metal containers. Manufacturing fish oil is not a homely job and requires great expertise and industrial set up. Good machinery for oil extraction and filtration aids in better quality of oil extraction and better quality of the product at the end. Generally fish oil is produced in large factories which are distantly located from the residential areas because they smell really bad.

23.05.2008. 03:31

Comments

justin 04.06.2009. 20:37

in other words you let it rot until it turns to oil

vicki 10.12.2009. 19:09

i have a stupid question . what would happen if you break the fish okl capsule and heat the liquid content? will it have the same clinical effect?

Hayaan 05.01.2010. 06:45

Thanks. does fish oil light up and be used for fires?

Al hamann 11.04.2010. 07:14

Some fish processing plants even make bio diesel and fuel oil out of the fish guts

Logesh Aacharya 02.06.2010. 23:30

I have extracted the fluid from the fishes which boiled for about 45 mins at 90 deg Centigrade. Later I centrifuged the fluid. Then I removed the aqueous layer and poured into a separating funnel. But its been 24 hours there is no separation of oil and water. Please tell me the alternative method for extracting the oil from the fluids.

Thanks & Regards
Logesh

Ike 24.06.2010. 20:32

Does fish oil contain blood?

Bruce 02.01.2011. 06:44

interesting description of industrial fish oil processing... "fermentation"?

I know of a single brand using fermentation in the industry: Green Pasture products.

Fermentation is very nuanced, delicate, does not lend itself to industry. It's also very slow, way too slow to keep the shareholders happy!


Here is the reality of the situation for most of what Americans purchase from the health food store:


Extraction: 200 degrees for 30 minutes to denature oil and facilitate pressing. -then fish is put into presses.

Processing: Bleaching with bleaching clays, then Deodorizing with high pressure steam plate blasting steam into oil, then on to Purifying by pouring oil through charcoal

----Most companies don't stop there!

Fractionation and Concentration: (to increase those new wonder substances "EPA/DHA")
-requires harsh chemical solvents

Often Cryoconcentration or "winterization" is used:
--freezing fish oil at -100 degrees for 24 hours results in freeze dried fish oil with 2.5x more eicasonoids - but uses chemicals to crate these frozen fatty acid crystals.

Yet another common trick:
Urea Complexation (Alkali Processing) - much like soap making, an alkali, (sodium) is combined with alcohol and used to separate sterols an fat soluble vitamins from the oil. -fatty acids then dissolved in mixture of alcohol and urea (antiseptic) and cooled to concentrate EPA/DHA, which can boost levels by 300%, but does leave residues of processing that require re-treatment.

Then other manufacturers use instead of solvent processing: MOLECULAR DISTILLATION:
--heats oil up to 480 degrees in low pressure vacuum for 6 hours so that vapors can be captured. EPA/DHA not protected during this process, so oxidation can be thorough in these conditions.


--This is similar processing to industrial vegetable oil.

rich 25.01.2011. 03:25

Buy 5kg of sardines cook them in till oven till they're dryish and then separate and freeze the oil you get. Use as you need. That seems easy enough too me..... Unless im missing something

Noah 28.03.2011. 06:25

Bruce, great info!

You should look into Minami Nutrition. They use a lower temperature extraction process without the use of bleaching, cryoconcentration, urea complexation or molecular distillation.

From what I know, they even use carbon dioxide as their solvent.

While it still does not compare in terms of the most natural version of processing of fermentation that nature intended, it seems like the next best option. Do you know anything about them?

Damon 29.06.2011. 02:37

I have aquired a supply of about 100 kg of fish off cuts a week. I have been cooking it in a giant cooker until all the bones go soft and the fish oil floats on the top. I use the fish to feed my working dogs by mixing it with rice and meat and cooked vegtables. I have buckets of fish oil left over. Is this oil worth keeping? Can I do any thing with it? distill it? or are its good qualities destroyed by the prolonged cooking?

Don 27.09.2011. 15:09

But who is squeezing the fish?

Tara 04.12.2011. 21:12

How is decomposing fish healthy to consume? Gross.

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