This week’s homemade superfood has been said to have a potent anti-fatigue factor. Who wouldn’t want a little of that in today’s society? A study done on rats showed rats consuming this food would swim at least 5x as long as rats not consuming this food. In fact, the rats kept going for so long they just flat out stopped the study before the rats would stop swimming. Now, I don’t know about you, but I could use some of that each day. (Maybe this is why I could pull both kids in the bike trailer yesterday afternoon?!) What food could this be? Liver. Before you squirm too much: did you know that, in general, organ meats are between 10 and 100 times higher in nutrients than muscle meats? These are the cuts of meat that we are most often throwing away!
Many superfoods are high in vitamins, but liver actually makes it easy to assimilate them. In particular liver is loaded with B vitamins, especially B12 and folate as well as preformed vit. A. It is high in an easily absorbed form of iron and also has many trace elements such as zinc, copper and chromium. Liver is a little powerhouse of super-nutrition and a little goes a long way.
You might be fearing the notion that the liver is where the body neutralizes toxins, so wouldn’t eating liver be dangerous? Thankfully, the answer is no. (Remember: quality is very important here, organic and preferably pasture-raised animals only.) The liver does not store toxins. Anything that can’t be removed from the body gets stored in body fat. The liver however, does store nutrients such as the ones mentioned above and vitamins D, E, and K to round out all of the fat-soluble vitamins in one power-packed punch. Liver has another important quality: it nourishes your liver. Think of it this way, like supports like. By eating liver, your liver is actually able to function better.
Some easy ways to incorporate liver into your diet are to:
- Take dessicated liver
- Take small frozen liver capsules like supplements
- Grate small chunks of liver into ground meat dishes during the week
- Make liver pate
My favorite way to eat liver is to have a weekly dose of liver pate. I make a batch large enough to make 4-8 servings and freeze many of them in ½ pint ball jars. For those of you looking for lunches on the run, this is fantastic. Save it for the end of the week when you need a little extra energy.
Here are a few recipes:
- Easy Chicken Liver Pate (my personal favorite)
- Chicken Liver Pate with Bacon
- Simply Divine Chicken Liver Pate
Now, I admit, this does take a little work to introduce into your diet. It is rare that you automatically go, yes! Serve me up some liver! But, it is oh-so-worth the benefits to make it a priority. For me, I started incorporating this by getting some super-duper special crackers to eat it with. Hey, it worked and it even convinced my daughter to eat it too. (My son loved it from the get-go, but he started eating liver at 8mos!)
It’s worth the effort and you will feel it to!