Traditional Super Food – Liver!
When I suggest to people that they should think about including liver as part of their diet they often pull a weird face (screw up their nose) and say “Ooh” or “Yuk”!
But here’s some reasons why you should think about it, and TRY it at least a few times before you judge it.
Organ meats are between 10-100 times higher in nutrients than corresponding muscle meats. In fact, in some traditional cultures they ONLY ate the organ meats – the lean muscle was meat was feed to the dogs or thrown away!
Some people object to the liver in particular saying “ it’s the body’s filter, so it’s full of toxins “ . Whilst the liver ‘s role is to eliminate toxins, it does not STORE them (they are most likely stored in fatty tissue and the nervous system).
Liver however DOES store important nutrients that are part of the body’s arsenal to eliminate toxins – such as Vitamins A,D,E,K, B12 and folic acid, along with minerals such as iron and copper. Its natures perfect superfood.
Tips when using Liver
Tip One: Grate it into a dish
The easiest way to include liver is to grate some into a minced based dish such as bolognaise, meatballs, homemade burgers or Sheppard’s pie.
Start with a small amount until you get used to the flavour.
Tip Two: Freezing reduces the flavour
Another trick is to freeze the liver, it reduces the taste. You can do this two ways:
1: cook your meat sauce with fresh mince and liver, freeze for another day
2: buy fresh liver and freeze, then defrost to use. If you do this be mindful that you can not re-freeze the sauce (or leftovers) , as any meat should only be frozen in one state (ie. Raw or cooked, but not both).
3: lots of people find handling/touching the liver weird at first, if you really don’t like it I suggest you become very good friends with your butcher and ask them to finely dice it for you. There are some butchers that make mince meat that has organ meat included – this is a great way to start. Please ask if you need a hand finding a butcher who does this.
My other favourite way is homemade Chicken Liver Pate.
I’ve included an easy recipe to get you started here.
If you not up to making your own, start with buying a small amount of good quality pate from a deli (ideally organic, pasture raised animals) and including at as part of your diet.
