Food Freedom Friday Edition 261 - Organ Meat
Food fads come and go but there is one type of food that has been and always will serve as the ultimate superfood!
I am referring to organ meats like liver, kidney and heart.
Organ meats are, gram for gram, the most concentrated source of vitamins, minerals, healthy fats and essential amino acids that you could eat. Organ meats are nature’s true multivitamin
Furthermore, one of the most readily available and nutritious organ meats in the world is beef liver.
A paltry 100 grams of beef liver is incredibly nutrient-dense and contains (in % of the recommended daily dose):
· Vitamin A: 522%
· Vitamin B6: 51%
· Vitamin B12: 1386%
· Niacin: 87%
· Riboflavin: 201%
· Selenium: 47%
· Iron: 34%
· Copper: 730%
· Zinc: 35%
Even though eating organ meat has fallen out of favor in modern cuisine, this ancient, sacred food is too good for you to simply pass over.
Benefits Of Organ Meats
The reasons to add organ meats to your diet include:
Heart Health
CoQ10 is a super nutrient which plays a vital role in energy production and the prevention of oxidative stress. CoQ10 has been shown to reduce blood pressure, improve arterial health, and dramatically cut the risk of heart failure. CoQ10 is abundant in beef heart, containing 4 times the amount found in muscle meat and is much more bioavailable in whole food form than simply adding another supplement to your regimen.
Boost Immunity
Vitamin D plays a key role in supporting your immune function and is challenging to get through food. If you spend the majority of your time indoors or live in a Northern climate and are not supplementing with Vitamin D it is very likely you are deficient.
Not all Vitamin D is equally beneficial. The most biologically active form of Vitamin D, D3 (cholecalciferol), is far superior and more bioavailable than D2 (ergocalciferol). Organ meats have some of the highest concentrations of naturally occurring vitamin D (D3) with liver leading the charge.
Joint Health
Amino acids are vital for nearly every biological process in the body, especially for healthy joints. Heart contains twice as much collagen and elastin as does muscle meat meaning it is rich in the amino acids glycine and proline. These are essential for connective tissue and joint health. Just 3.5 ounces of beef heart contains 28.5 grams of amino acid-rich protein, compared to just 19 grams in 3.5 ounces of grass-fed beef.
Improved Cognition
Organ meat is one of the best sources of choline, an essential nutrient, often tough to get enough of, for the brain, muscles, and liver. Choline has been shown to benefit cognitive performance, anxiety, and mood disorders.
Furthermore, organ meats contain bioavailable, easily absorbable heme iron, which can further support brain function. Brain itself is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, which in turn is of even more beneficial for your brain.
Increased energy
Vitamin B12 not only helps convert food into glucose for energy, but supports memory, nerve function, and mood. Contrary to popular belief, B12 is not bioavailable in plant food and may be contributing to a worldwide deficiency. Obtaining B12 from whole food sources, such as liver and kidneys, provides the best way for your body to utilize this important nutrient. Kidney is a particularly rich in Vitamin B12.
Building And Maintaining Muscle
Organ meats provide a source of high-quality protein vital for building and maintaining muscle mass. Eating organ meat from well-raised animals can also be effective against age-related muscle loss.
Organ meats also provide leucine - the most anabolic essential amino acid – which stimulates muscle growth on a cellular basis. There is a balance to everything and excessive growth and leucine can also harm health. This is why eating organ meats can actually be a better choice than regular muscle-meat cuts as they have a far better balance of healthy fats and amino acids.
Radiant Skin
Vitamin A promotes cell turnover, inhibits the activity of sebaceous glands and prevents comedone formation (known to cause acne). Carotenoids, the plant source of Vitamin A, must be converted to the more-usable form, retinol by the gut mucosal barrier. This is an inefficient process for many as it requires optimal gastrointestinal health. Liver, on the other hand, is the most concentrated source of retinol. Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin and must be consumed with fat in order to be absorbed and utilized providing another reason why organ meat is a better source than plants.
Reproductive Health
Folate (not to be confused with the synthetic form – folic acid) is critical to the development of healthy babies in the womb. Liver has a particularly high folate content, far superior to a synthetic supplement. Consuming folate through liver is especially important if you’re following a Paleo-style diet, which can eliminate most other food-sources of folate.
You might have heard that pregnant moms should avoid eating eat organ meats due to an increased risk of Vitamin A toxicity. While Vitamin A toxicity and deficiency are both very serious, it’s important to understand that the likelihood of hypervitaminosis A is quite low. One must consume an acute one-time dose of 500,000 IU or a repetitive intake of 25,000 IU/day for several months. (A large serving of liver may reach the 25,000 threshold, but it must be consumed for several months for toxicity to set in.)
Is Meat Enough?
Westerners are more likely to feast on muscle meat and eggs as opposed to the organ meats and offal eaten by ancestral humans. Whilst this may appear healthy, it can cause some problems. Methionine is an amino acid found abundantly in both muscle meat and eggs. Higher intakes of methionine increase homocysteine production. Homocysteine is an amino acid that has the potential to be harmful when not recycled by the body properly. High levels in the blood have been linked to dementia, preeclampsia, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary embolism to name a few. For homocysteine to be recycled, there must be adequate amounts of Vitamins B6, B12, folate, betaine, and choline present.
Fortunately, organ meats are a rich source of each of these nutrients, particularly B12. Beef liver contains three times as much B12 as kidney, seven times as much as heart, and about 17 times as much as ground beef.
So, if your aim is to follow the healthful diets of your hunter-gatherer ancestors, it’s important to remember that organ meats played a consistent role in the ancestral diet. If following ancestral practices is of little interest to you, modern research has helped reiterate the importance of the nutrients organ meats offer, no matter what diet you’re following.
Including Organ Meats
Many people are so put-off by the very thought of eating organ meats, that they would be challenged to complain about the taste – as they would never have actually tasted them! However, once you can mentally overcome the thought and actually taste properly prepared organ meats you may realize that they are not as awful as you might have expected.
The key to adding organ meats to your diet is just like any other health-related advice: figure out what works for you. If you’ve never tried organ meats before, you may be hesitant. Don’t feel like you have to start cooking liver once a week in order to benefit. Simply pick a recipe you think you’ll like, and give it a go.
The worst thing that can happen is you decide you don’t like it―then your diet stays like it is. On the other hand, you might find a cheap, nutritious, tasty piece of protein you can add into your rotation of recipes.
Adding organ meats to recipes may also be easier to start with than eating them alone:
Beef And Organ Burgers
This is my favorite way to get people started eating organ meats. Using a food processor, grind organ meat along with aromatics and spices of your choice until they are well-blended. Add in ground beef and pulse until combined. If you use more organ meat than beef, your burgers will have a distinct organ-meat flavor. The most successful ratio is usually 3:1 beef to organ. Once all the ingredients are combined, you can form them into patties or a meatloaf and cook whatever way you prefer.
Organ Sausage
If you’re a hands-off person, buying high-quality organ sausage is a great way to get in your weekly offal. These could include:
Beef Braunschweiger - the best choice for those new to organ sausage. It’s made with a 60/40 mix of ground beef and beef liver creating milder organ-meat flavor. It’s fully cooked and ready to eat.
Liverwurst - a blend of liver, heart, kidneys and beef. It is the most popular organ sausage and provides a great diversity of nutrients. It has a strong, but not unpleasant flavor. Add this to soups and hot dishes, consume with eggs, or enjoy alone
Headcheese - a beef sausage that contains heart and tongue (no cheese). It is seasoned with onion, pepper, and coriander and is fully cooked (you just need to slice it), making it great for quick breakfast or lunch on the go.
When purchasing your products, be sure the sausage you choose is free of soy, msg, dairy, sweeteners, binders, preservatives and additives and comes from grass-fed and finished animals only.
Ideas For the Adventurous
Heart or tongue are great organ meats to start with when trying a new recipe, because the texture is similar to steak. More organ meat cooking tips:
Soaking organ meat in lemon juice will help draw out impurities and improve taste and texture. Simply place your sliced organ in a bowl, barely cover with water and add the juice of one lemon. Soak for a few hours and pat dry prior to cooking
Avoid overcooking. Well-done organ meats have a tough texture that’s hard to swallow (literally).
Always add spices and herbs to enhance the flavor.
Follow recipes exactly, especially as a beginner. Cooking organ meats can be very different from preparing muscle meats.
How Much Organ Meat
Beef liver offers the most health benefits. Even one portion of beef liver can cover the weekly requirement of a variety of vitamins and minerals.
However, the liver is the type of organ meat that many people do not enjoy eating.
You still, however, have several options for eating extremely nutritious organ meat:
· You can eat about 100 grams of beef liver once a week
· You can eat smaller portions of about one ounce every odd day
· You can eat other organ meats in larger quantities
Either way, you don’t have to eat beef liver all the time, even if it is the most nutrient-dense food since your body stores nutrients.
In my experience, calf’s liver tastes very good. It is almost as nutritious as beef liver with a much milder taste.
With other healthy organ meats such as chicken or pork liver, kidney, heart, or stomach, you can eat as much as you would like or are prepared to as they are not as nutrient dense as beef liver.
The Ultimate Superfood
They might not be the trendiest superfood of the year, but when the obsession with broccoli sprouts or dandelion greens has calmed organ meats will remain one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet.
While there are no negatives to including these new cuts into your diet, there are a few things to consider.
For one, keep in mind that eating offal may take some getting used to.
The flavor and texture are different from that of the muscle meats you’re likely consuming now. Perhaps add small amounts to dishes or combine them with your favorite protein options as a way of ‘sneaking them in’ as your taste buds adjust. Adding them ground to meatballs or meatloaf is an easy way to start.
As with any type of meat you buy, it is always better to buy local, grass-fed, or fully pastured when possible. Not only is grass-fed healthier for you, it’s also better for the environment and the animals.