Liver, Ultimate Superfood

I keep running into information telling me that liver, and other organ meats, is one of the most important, most nutrient-dense, foods I can feed myself and my family. I've avoided it as best I could-- the taste and smell make me gag-- but it seems that if I want my family to have really nutritious foods, I just can't get around the fact that liver is top of the list.

Scott at Modern Forager explains that "offal, or organ meats, is a foreign concept to most Westernized individuals, who typically opt for muscle meats like T-bones, sirloins, and roasts. Organs are now simply leftovers that are discarded after the animal has been dressed. However, our ancestors and modern day hunter-gatherers opt for the organ meats of animals and have been known to leave behind the muscle meats when food is plentiful." Chris at The Healthy Skeptic tells us that "while it’s true that fresh fruits and veggies are full of vitamins and minerals, their micronutrient content pales in comparison to what is found in meats and organ meats - especially liver."

And here is an excerpt from "The Liver Files: Recipes and Lore About Our Most Important Sacred Food", from the Weston A. Price Foundation website:

So what makes liver so wonderful? Quite simply, it contains more nutrients, gram for gram, than any other food. In summary, liver provides:

* An excellent source of high-quality protein
* Nature’s most concentrated source of vitamin A
* All the B vitamins in abundance, particularly vitamin B12
* One of our best sources of folic acid
* A highly usable form of iron
* Trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium; liver is our best source of copper
* An unidentified anti-fatigue factor
* CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardio-vascular function
* A good source of purines, nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA

The Weston A. Price Foundation recommends eating one 100-gram serving of beef, lamb, bison or duck liver (about 4 ounces) once or twice a week, providing about 50,000 IU vitamin A per serving. Chicken liver, which is lower in vitamin A, may be consumed more frequently.

Here is a suggestion for a healthy diet from a really interesting article called Guts and Grease: The Diet of Native Americans:

"So the formula for good health in the modern age begins with the products of "a fine dairy herd"—whole, raw, unprocessed milk from cows that eat green grass, a highly nutritious substitute for guts and grease and one that every child can enjoy, even native American children who are supposedly lactose intolerant. Add some good fats (butter, tallow and lard), aim for liver or other organ meats once a week (but don’t fret if you can’t achieve this with your own children), make cod liver oil part of the daily routine, eat plenty of meat and seafood, and augment the diet with a variety of plant foods properly prepared, including a few that are fermented. Keep sugar and white flour to a minimum."

I've heard tips that a good way to eat liver without actually eating it straight up is to freeze it in chunks and then grate it into food or drinks. I've been grating it into my ground beef meals, but it is super hard to grate: It is cold, slimy, and hard as a rock when frozen. I've torn my hand several times on the grater, so I don't want to do it anymore. So what I just did was puree the liver in the food processor and freeze it in an ice cube tray. Now I can toss a liver cube into my meals without any problems. The real challenge is not letting the whole meal taste like liver because of it!! Blech.

But that's me these days-- I'm that health nut mom (the one we used to make fun of as kids, when we took that mom's kid home to our house for a "real" meal of hot dogs and cookies) who makes her kids eat strange-looking tasting concoctions because "it's good for you!"

Do you eat liver or other organ meats? How do you prepare it?


Related links/posts:
Guts and Grease: The Diet of Native Americans
The Liver Files: Recipes and Lore About Our Most Sacred Food-- includes recipes
Liver Recipes from The Urban Homemaker
Want to Live Forever? Drink Kombucha!
Coconut Oil: Our Favorite Snack
Health Checklist