Breakfast of Champions: Liver

I am the proud owner of a slab of cow's liver. Eeewww. Now don't get me wrong, as a child I grew up on beef having been raised on a small farm (you can read about that HERE) and actually liked liver as long as it was smothered in ketchup.

About a year ago after reading about the health benefits of liver, I attempted to cook a portion. It's definitely a cheap cut of meat, high in micronutrients, especially minerals. I didn't remember exactly how we cooked it during my childhood so I just threw it in the pan. It tasted like...well, let's just say it all ended up in the garbage along with the one bite I tasted.

There was a humorous anecdote in Reader's Digest about a little girl who was served liver and she asked, "Mommy, why are we eating diarrhea for dinner?" LOL! My thoughts exactly. Determined to eat like a Paleo cavewoman on the advice of many currently popular Paleo authors, I ventured forth.

As I stared at the meat case I asked anyone within hearing, "How does one make liver so it is edible?"

One woman told me she didn't think anyone should eat liver because it's the organ that filters and stores all the toxins. I told her I thought so, too, but according to The Paleo Mom (Sarah Ballantyne) book, The Paleo Approach, the liver does filter toxins, but it doesn't store them. Instead it "binds them, thereby rendering them inert, and then typically shuttles them to the kidneys for excretion in the urine but also to the gallbladder for secretion into the gastrointestinal tract and excretion in the stool." 

The Paleo Mom also explains, "While there may be some toxins present in liver from grain-fed, nonorganic, antibiotic-treated animals raised in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations, or factory farms), those toxins are also present in the fat and muscle from those animals to a very similar degree as in the organs. (Some reports suggest that even more heavy metals sequester in muscle than in organs.)" So there you have it!

That is reassuring, sort of. Who does one believe? There are so many theories amongst the hundreds of authors, doctors, or diet gurus and they often conflict. For instance some say goitrogens suppress the thyroid, others say there is no evidence for that. Well, someone thought there was evidence at one time. Was it lost? Or is the misery due to detoxification cause for celebration or worry?  Or we should eat small, more frequent meals rather than fewer, larger meals? If the liver is so efficient at it's job, why are there so many people who have high heavy metals stored in their fat? In the end we must decide based on our common sense, personal experience, and our individual bodies. I have doubts so I'll start slowly and eat just a small amount.

The newly-enlightened woman then leaned closer and graciously imparted her liver-cooking knowledge upon me as if it were a cherished secret: Fry it on medium-high heat, each side for two minutes. Don't cook it all the way through or the texture will make it difficult to eat. It should be a little pink on the inside.

 

Eeeww...I don't eat pink meat. I visualize mad cow disease running rampant through my system. Or parasites burrowing into my brain. Both would render me a vegetable after a period of unthinkable torture and then kill me. Not the way I want to die.

We got to talking about chicken livers which were sold out (along with the elusive cow bones*), and she said fry those livers with onions and bacon. Oh! I could use the bacon grease for the liver oil and make it taste better? She said that would make it really fattening and I countered with that's the diet! Paleo people love their fat and bacon grease is gold. She laughed and said it must be wonderful to have a reason to eat bacon. Exactly!

Anticipating a bloody mess with mad cows running free, I ventured bravely ahead anyway. I was told by another shopper if you can't eat liver plain then chop it all up and add it to meatballs or another food. OR chop the raw liver into tiny pieces and swallowing them like vitamins. Eeeeww...is that safe? I've heard of people putting it in their smoothies raw, too. No way.

Anticipating failure, I cut off just a tiny piece in order to save the rest for meatballs or vitamins. I fried up bacon from grass-fed, non-steroidal pigs first as that would serve as my breakfast protein even if the liver didn't work out. The bloody liver sizzled. I counted aloud exactly two minutes on each side. It was still bloody. Gross. I kept thinking of all the rare steaks I've seen in my life and tried not to think about mad cow. I cut the cooked, slightly red liver in tiny bite-sized pieces and ate.

It was OK! The center, or blood parts, actually tasted like I remembered from childhood. The outer, overdone parts were tough and difficult. I wonder what raw liver tastes like?

Eeeewww! I don't remember it looking as bloody as this picture!
Maybe I was closing my eyes?

I washed it all down with a large salad.


It's only been two weeks, but I haven't cheated once on this AIP diet. I am amazed! However, I am desiring unsweetened carob chips - my formerly 20% Paleo cheats. It's been a long time since I've indulged and they are calling to me. It doesn't help that I'm feeling tired all the time and that just makes me want to cheat in hopes of some energy.


*I thought my co-op was just having a hard time getting cow bones as one of their employees once told me. Come to find out, the bones arrive every Tuesday and are sold out immediately due to the popularity of bone broth! And one must special order organic chicken livers and they only come in the 12 lb. size. They are not making this diet easy.

Beef Stew (Recipe)

 

Today I made traditional beef stew by mixing and tweaking some recipes I found online.

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients, organic, healthy and natural:

 

 

3 lbs. stew meat, cut up into 1 inch chunks

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon pepper

 

2 onions, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

 

2 cups of water

 

1-2 bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon paprika

dash of allspice or cloves

 

3 large carrots, chopped

3 ribs of celery, chopped

1 cup of squash, chopped

 

parsley for garnish or just add it to the pot for some greenery (optional)

 

Brown stew meat on all sides in olive oil. Remove and set aside. Add onions and garlic to pan and sauté until soft. Add meat and 2 cups of water. Bring to boil and simmer for one hour.

 

Add carrots, celery and squash and simmer for another 30 minutes.

 

Serve.

 

You know, it's hard to get excited about beef stew after eating Moroccan Lamb Stew! (I've been experimenting and tweaking that lamb recipe every time I make it and I think I have perfected it so check it out again!) Beef stew was good, but not exciting. Maybe because I excluded all the ingredients not on my Paleo-Hashimoto's-MCS diet? No sugar, no Worcestershire sauce, no flour (to thicken the sauce), no red wine, and no potatoes. I remember when I was little the best part was the potatoes. I think as an adult the best part would have been the wine!

 

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make this tantalizing so it's something I might want to crave, let me know!

 

Yum!

 

 



Beef: It's What's For Dinner, Pot Roast (Recipe)

I grew up on a farm with lots of livestock, including cattle.

 

Every year my dad would buy one or two sweet baby calves and they'd spend a few years getting fat on grass, hay, apples and hazelnuts. After a while the cows started having calves and we ended up with a good-sized herd on our small, three acre farm.


Candy Cow and Aries
 

They all had names: Skippy, Charger, Zeus, Apollo, Aries, Reddy, Echo, Bonnie, and Candy Cow are the names I remember. (I didn't name Candy Cow, my niece did. I was not impressed.)

Zeus, the Bad-Ass Bull
I named him Jupiter after the Roman God, but my dad couldn't get it right and kept calling him Jumper which I thought was so indignant for such a magnificent bull. Finally I said, "Just call him Zeus, dad! Same god only Greek." My dad did much better with Zeus.

 

Then every other year the butcher would arrive with his shot gun and murder them out in the backyard. It was gruesome. Gallons of blood and piles of body parts. Sad, but at the same time fascinating. Regardless of the naming ritual, we learned quickly not to get too attached. They were food. You want a hamburger? Get used to it. At least we knew exactly from where our food came. I think if more people took tours through factory farms, there would be more vegetarians. Our cows were healthy, happy and not mistreated. Well, usually not mistreated.

 

Skippy was my first calf. When he was tiny he'd follow me around the field skipping and jumping around me, hence his name. He got so big his back came up to my shoulder and his playful skipping got really dangerous. Not so cute anymore, but still sweet and friendly, unlike Charger who earned his name even as a calf.

Skippy and Charger

One day Skippy escaped through the fence when no one was home. My dad found him in the garden gorging on the veggies. He tried chasing Skippy out of the garden, but Skippy decided he didn't want to leave. He found snack paradise. And being twice the size of my dad, he had no fear so he skipped playfully (galloped clumsily) in circles around my dad rototilling all the plants up with his hooves pausing every so often to take a nibble of a plant. Frustrated and furious at the destruction of our whole garden, my dad grabbed his gun and shot Skippy in the butt. Skippy high-tailed it outta there although he didn't have much of a tail left. The vet visited later that day, scowled at my dad, and assured us Skippy would live another year or at least until the next butchering season. We always knew when we were eating "Skippy Burgers"...we'd find buckshot in every bite.

 

We grew up on steaks, hamburgers, meatloaf, beef stew, French dip, beef burritos and pot roast and took for granted the nightly gourmet meals of organic, grass-fed, steroid-free beef. As an adult, I'd order anything but steak in restaurants even when it was the menu specialty. I would have been happy to never see another steak in my lifetime. Other than hamburger I've rarely eaten beef let alone prepared it. According to the book Eat Right for Your Blood Type by Peter D'Adamo my body should love beef. For the Paleo diet, I've been eating hamburger, but I'm getting really sick of hamburger no matter how many ways I've tried to camouflage it. I need some variety to keep me from going crazy with food boredom so I decided to branch out to other cuts of beef. Today I'm experimenting with pot roast. I've never made pot roast in my adult life! I remember it being really good. Hopefully my memories aren't wrong.




Organic ingredients needed:

1 pot roast (preferably grass-fed, steroid-free, antibiotic-free)
1 tablespoon ground pepper
2 teaspoons sea salt
pinch of cayenne
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic, diced
1 teaspoon of fresh ginger, diced
1 onion, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped (optional)
bay leaf
1 sprig rosemary or thyme  or oregano or one of each (you choose)
Kabocha squash, or other squash (optional)

Rub pepper, salt and cayenne into the pot roast.

Heat olive oil in large pan, sear pot roast on medium-high heat on all sides, remove. Put pot roast in baking pan or Dutch oven with fresh herbs and water about 1/2 way up the side of the roast. Add the onions, carrots, celery, and garlic to pot with the olive oil, sear quickly, remove, and add all of it to baking dish with pot roast. Cover with tight lid. Bake at 290 degrees until meat is very tender. Total baking time: about 3 1/2 hours for 3 lb. pot roast and 4 - 4 1/2 hours for 4 lb. pot roast.

 

 



I was going to add some squash as a replacement for potatoes, but forgot so I baked it separately. Next time I'll add the squash with the carrots and onions to the baking dish and see how that goes.

UPDATE: It was wonderful. Very tender, yummy meat.

I look forward to breakfast leftovers!

Yum!

Echo (one day old)
We ate him...eventually.