Why you must eat liver regularly

In both humans and animals the liver is one of the most important organs. It serves as a storage organ for many vitamins and minerals such as: vitamins A, D, E, K, B12 and folic acid, and minerals such as copper and iron.

It is one of the most nutrient dense foods that you can eat and will certainly give you value for money as it is dirt cheap.

A 100g serving of liver will give you the following nutrients:

Vitamin B12: 3,460% of the RDI.

Vitamin A: 860–1,100% of the RDI.

Riboflavin (B2): 210–260% of the RDI.

Folic acid (B9): 65% of the RDI.

Iron: 80% of the RDI, or 35% for women of menstruating age.

Copper: 1,620% of the RDI.

Choline: Liver provides all of the Adequate Intake (AI) for women and nearly all of it for men (AI is used because there is insufficient evidence to set an RDI).

High in protein: approx. 29grams

As you can see it is packed with nutrients so it gets the tick from me as a food to INCLUDE rather than EXCLUDE into your diet.

If you are not a fan of the flavour on its own there are many ways to get around that.

Here are some tips

• Make a pate you can find a very basic recipe here

• Fry with onions, mushrooms and bacon

• Mix into meatballs find a fantastic recipe here

• Soak it in something acidic- this helps to remove some of the unpleasant taste that may turn people off.

• DON'T OVERCOOK IT- it should be pink in the middle if you overcook your liver it will be rubbery.

• Mix it into mince in a 1 part liver to 4 parts mince ratio eg 50 liver to 200g mince

• I like to buy some liver slice it into cubes and freeze it so I can just grate it into dishes without the rest of the family really noticing it

• Recently I took some lambs fry, sliced it thinly and coated it in a mix of coconut flour and spices before I cooked it in a pan this gave it some great flavour.

There is a misconception that the liver stores toxins and this is untrue. One of the livers main roles is to help us remove the toxic compounds in the body by modifying their structure to make them less toxic and ultimately easier for us to excrete.

There are however cohorts of people who maybe better to avoid eating a lot of this nutrient dense food. These include:

Pregnant women- due to vitamin A toxicity during pregnancy

People suffering gout- liver is high in purines and may worsen symptoms

If you are willing to give it a chance then start with sneaking in 50g a week into a regular family dish such as bolognaise, burger/pattie.

Ideally you don't need to be eating it everyday as it is such a nutrient dense food, but if you can get in 100g a week then you are well on your way to getting the benefits of this nutrient dense food.

References

https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/beef-products/3469/2

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/blog/2019/03/17/repeat-liver-not-filter/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7477116/