Nutrition and Health
Despite Its Poor Reputation, Beef Liver Is My Favorite Food for Health Reasons.
I haven’t come across more nutritious food than liver in my diet.
The beef liver serves as a superfood in my diet.
I know that the liver has a poor reputation. Many people don’t like eating liver. If you don’t like it, I won’t blame you.
Despite its benefits and my access to the best sources, I am the only one eating it in my immediate family. Everyone, especially young ones, stays away from the liver.
I enjoy a variety of meat. However, organ meats solved my nutritional deficiencies. Out of all offals, beef liver has been the superfood in my diet for various reasons. It helped me unleash my metabolic and mental health power. I see beef liver as one of the most nutritious foods for meat-eating humans.
Eggs are considered one of the most nutritious foods. However, since I don’t eat eggs anymore, beef liver tops the list as my preferred and favorite food giving me numerous metabolic and mental health benefits.
Since not many people enjoy eating the liver, it is one of the cheapest food in Australia. I buy a kilo of organic beef liver for under $10 in Melbourne. As his loyal customer, my butcher always keeps some for me.
He also gives me kilos of fat (free of charge) as “no one likes them,” according to him. He said most customers asked him to trim the fat from meat, which was a hassle. Therefore, I am his favorite customer as I always choose fatty meat.
Interestingly, this butcher in his 70s observed that more people have been interested in fatty meat in recent years. He wondered and asked me why.
I told him the cholesterol hypothesis was dead. He couldn’t understand what I meant, so I had to articulate it in his vernacular.
Ironically, my butcher eats only lean meat, but his cholesterol is much higher than mine. Since we compared our cholesterol marks and I explained to him the cholesterol paradox, he stopped teasing me, “Cholesterol would kill you one day.”
When I started a keto-carnivore diet, I noticed that just muscle meats would not include all nutrients that my body and brain need.
Thus, I systematically included organ meats. I was pleased when organ meats met my nutrition requirements like cholesterol, choline, betaine, biotin, riboflavin, and vitamin B12 from eggs which I cannot eat anymore.
Nowadays, my friends and relatives serve me beef liver as party food. I am grateful for their support. They believed I trained their brain.
Training the Brain to Enjoy the Liver
I never had an issue eating liver, but some friends, relatives, and colleagues did. They believed in the benefits, but they had difficulty consuming it.
So, I helped them to train their brain to enjoy the liver.
Some people enjoyed the fried version of it, adding some herbs. I don’t add anything except pink salt to my liver. I prefer cooking in the oven with some tallow (beef fat).
For some people, I introduced frozen liver bits, which were palatable to those who like ice cream. After a while, they consumed around 30 grams once or twice a week.
A few people added liver pieces to their casserole. They had around 95% beef or lamb and 5% liver in diced pieces, which tasted hidden in the meal.
Most of them, after a while, learned to eat liver and added it to their diet.
However, some people still struggled. For their needs, they found liver supplements hiding the taste of liver sold in health stores.
I don’t need supplemented liver as my brain loves the taste and texture of the beef liver in my food.
Various liver types include beef, lamb, chicken, and duck. I tried them. But, I preferred beef liver.
I enjoyed the taste of chicken liver, but when I consume it as a main meal, it immediately takes me out of ketosis. So I only eat them in tiny amounts sometimes.
I don’t eat chicken for various reasons, even though it meets my dietary regimen. I will share my concerns about chicken in another post.
Nutritional Value of the Beef Liver
The beef liver, the central “organ meat” in my diet, has a unique nutritional profile.
The beef liver can be great for protein lovers or those who need to increase bioavailable and affordable protein in their diet. It also provides moderate fat and low carbs. According to the nutrition database, it includes 64% protein, 24% fat, and 12% carbs.
Beef liver includes all major vitamins like Vitamin A, C, E, K, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, B12, choline, and betaine. You can check the details in this source.
One hundred grams of beef liver provides more than the daily recommended amount of Vitamin A, B2, and B12.
Unlike other animal products, beef liver includes Vitamin C. It is a small amount, but it meets my requirements. My body does not need too much Vitamin C. However, Vitamin C is needed more in high-carb diets.
Since I started eating liver, I did not need to use multivitamin tablets, especially B complex.
In addition, beef liver includes all major minerals like Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium, Zinc, Copper, Manganese, and Selenium. You might check the details in this source.
In addition, beef liver includes some sugar, but fortunately, it does not take me out of ketosis when I consume around 100 grams daily. However, people following stringent keto diets, especially those using it for epilepsy, need to watch the sugar in the beef liver.
For example, eating 300 grams of beef liver once reduced ketones in my bloodstream significantly.
So, from my experience, those who follow strict ketogenic diets need to be careful with the amount of liver in their diet if they want to stay in deep ketosis.
Health Benefits of the Beef Liver
I gained numerous health benefits from consuming beef liver. The benefits revolve around addressing nutritional deficiencies.
From my experience, the most significant health benefit was addressing the nutritional deficiency of Vitamin B12 and choline, solving a few physical and mental problems for me.
For example, after consuming beef liver a few times a week, around 50 to 100 grams for the first year, my mild anemia, blurred vision, teeth problems, and brain fog disappeared.
I struggled a lot with Vitamin B12, but since I eat beef liver, I don’t even need to supplement it anymore.
My blood markers show the high end. Even my family doctor thought I had a B12 injection when she saw such a high marker. When I mentioned eating liver, she understood the reason.
Some people in my health and fitness circles also mentioned improving their vision and anemic situation.
In addition, some people mentioned increased energy, muscle growth, and bone strength.
As I owe my energy, muscles, and bone strengths to numerous other factors, such as time-restricted eating and personalized training in my lifestyle, I cannot link them to the benefits of the liver.
Carnivore Eurelius documented community anecdotes and his thoughts in an article linking them to relevant papers reviewed by a board-certified doctor.
How About the Side Effects of Eating Liver?
Consuming around 50 to 100 grams of liver a few times a week did not cause any side effects.
However, I read some warnings in nutrition literature that too much liver consumption might lead to a condition called Hypervitaminosis A.
This condition refers to Vitamin A toxicity, as the animal liver has a significant amount of Vitamin A.
Vitamin A is essential for vision, immune system, reproduction, and skin health as an antioxidant. However, like other vitamins or nutrients, too much of it is not good for the body.
In addition, 100 grams of beef liver includes more than the recommended amount of B2, Vitamin B12, and copper. So people who have issues with these nutrients need to be careful.
In my opinion, the risk of this side effect is low unless we consume liver too much and too frequently.
However, it is crucial to keep it in mind, especially if we use Vitamin A, Vitamin B12, and Copper supplements and consume other foods rich in these vitamins, we might have risks.
Discussing the nutritional and supplemental impact on our health with qualified healthcare professionals is wise.
How to Cook Liver to Make it Palatable
I came across incredible liver recipes. However, I don’t follow them as most of them include additives I don’t want to consume.
I only consume beef liver by cooking in the oven with tallow for 15 minutes in 220 degrees Celcius heat. The middle of the pieces are still pink for my enjoyment and to protect some delicate nutrition.
I don’t enjoy overcooked liver, which I tried at some friends’ houses during our BBQ sessions. Thus, they offer me medium-cooked ones.
In addition to the awful taste of overcooked liver, I also know that burned meat includes carcinogens.
The most common recipes include frying, barbequing, and casseroles.
Slightly fried liver in olive oil with onion and garlic attracts some people. They add various herbs such as oregano, sage, rosemary, and cummin.
Some friends cook liver pieces with mixed vegetables as a casserole. They add a lot of onions, garlic, and parsley to hide the undesirable taste of the liver.
Carnivore friends add a small number of liver pieces to their meat dishes.
A majority of friends love beef liver in barbeque. They add intensely flavored herbs to liver pieces, such as black pepper, red pepper, garlic, onion salt, and turmeric.
Diet As a Health Matter
Readers might wonder how I moved from plant-based to animal-based diets. The transition was not easy and smooth. I had a lot of concerns and cemented perceptions until I faced severe health conditions and saw people suffering from nutritional deficiencies.
It was impossible for me to believe in the benefits of animal-based diets. I would not consider adding the liver to my diet in my vegetarian days as I had a fixed mindset about diet. Rather than seeing diet as a health matter, I saw it as an ethical and philosophical matter.
Regrettably, I deliberately shut down my thoughts, closing my mind to options due to my false beliefs and biased perceptions, which conflicted with my genetic makeup, causing undesirable health consequences.
I learned from my mistakes later when I suffered from 12 entangled health problems caused by nutritional deficiencies, increasing the stress on my body and mind.
Nowadays, I see diet as a health matter confidently. Therefore, I openly share my thoughts and feelings about food, respect people’s choices, and support their goals in any diet.
I followed many diets in my younger years. Finally, I decided to stay in keto-carnivore to reap the benefits of high fat, low carbs, and bioavailable proteins.
I also know that some friends and family members in keto-vegan thrive, reaping the benefits of vegetables and healthy fats, keeping them in ketosis. But unfortunately, plants did not suit my genetic makeup; hence I had to eliminate them from my diet.
I have family members and friends following vegan, carnivore, and numerous diets in-between. We all respect each other and support our needs. I am happy to cook vegetable dishes for my family members and friends. They do the same for me.
The only recent situation I faced was in an Airbnb accommodation, as I documented in this story titled How I Felt When I Was Thrown out of an Airbnb House.
Diet is an individual and health matter. Different diets suit different individuals for various reasons. Thus, I firmly believe that people should customize their diet based on their genetics, metabolism, fitness goals, and lifestyle choices.
Different diets might address different situations. For me, ketogenic diets with time-restricted eating helped me, as explained in this story titled Keto Diets + Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle Tick the Boxes of Health Goals.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Organ meats include valuable nutrients. They can be added to the eating regimens of those who follow animal-based diets.
The beef liver, from my experience, is the tastiest covering my nutritional needs. I also try lamb, chicken, and duck liver, but they are not as attractive as beef liver to me.
We are individuals with different tastes. Unless we try, we will not know what suits our fancy. There are a plethora of recipes on the Internet.
There are various ways to consume beef liver. Some people freeze it and eat it raw. Many people cook it, as I explained in previous sections. And some people buy liver supplements.
Buying fresh liver, like any food, from reliable sources is essential. I prefer grass-fed beef liver, but it might not be available in other countries.
The key concern with overconsumption of the liver is potential Vitamin A toxicity. Thus, keeping this risk in mind and taking appropriate measures can be valuable to protect our health.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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