It took me years of dietary exploration to finally understand why organ meats from healthy pastured and wild animals are the main category of ideal human superfoods.
These ancestral treasures are evolutionarily and biologically appropriate and essential for humans to consume on a weekly if not daily basis. It's the way we ate for 99% of human history.
Hold up! Do I sense a reservation of squeamishness about consuming organ meats in you right now?
I know at least 10% of my readers are salivating at this very moment but if that's not you, I got your back!
Don't worry: By the end of this post I'm going to nutritionally blow your mind, dissolve any squeamish pallet reactions on the idea of downing organs, and show you my 2 favorite instant organ products that make consuming organs inconspicuous, convenient and delicious.
I'll show you how to feed yourself organs without even knowing that you just did, except by how energized, de-stressed and satiated you feel.
No special trips to the butcher needed. No slurping raw liver necessary.
For the record both those things are great but I understand that that's too much to ask at first of a majority of even the most hardcore wellness-dedicated.
Results first. Effort later only if you want.
How I Finally Discovered Nature's Ancestral Multivitamins
I used to believe that every nutrient found in animal products was found in plants or could be created by my own body from plant-based derivatives. Boy was I mistaken.
A decade ago (which was nearly a decade into eating vegan and running into health problems) I finally considered that the opposite could be the case:
Not only is the full list of essential human nutrients NOT found in plants: Every essential nutrient that is in plants is found in animal products.
To thrive I - and perhaps all of us - biologically require substantial doses of highly bioavailable preformed nutrients found in animal products to put my body into a fully optimal state!
I still adore plant foods daily. They are my source of carbohydrates and adaptogenic herbal compounds I swear by.
But today the bulk of my vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins and co-factor nutrients come from well-sourced animal products.
Can't We Just Eat Muscle Meat Instead?
I love grass fed red meat. Ruminant animals are a treasure and together with seafood tend to be more nutritious across the board compared to single stomached animals like poultry and pork.
Compared to the nut and seed based protein and fat sources I ate back in my radical anti-meat days, red muscle meat is a huge improvement in terms of bioavailable nutrients and the biologically appropriate balance of fatty acids and amino acids.
Red muscle meat also tends to taste good to everyone. Real good!
But only eating lean muscle cuts and discarding the rest of the animal is quite silly and unnatural when you think about it.
What about all the non-muscle parts of a beast that our ancestors consumed after every successful hunt?
When we aren't used to something, our brain naturally puts up some resistance. This applies to all sources of nutrition...
...Except steak. Almost every long term vegetarian person I know eventually succumbs to the instinctually correct act of giving in to eating steak or ground beef with their barehands to revive their body from the trauma of fasting from our principle food group.
As nutritious as muscle meat is. It's not actually nutritious enough to cover everything you need for optimal health and performance.
That's where organs come in. Ounce for ounce, they have 5 to 50 times the nutrient density of muscle meat and plant foods of a majority of the top essential vitamins, minerals, amino acids and co-factor nutrients.
Check the magnitude's more nutrition in organ meats in this chart. Many of these values in organs get us close to or exceeding the % RDA for these nutrients.
This list doesn't include other important nose-to-tail nutrition therapy staples such as the collagen-rich connective tissue one gets from eating bone broth and slow-cooked cartilage rich cuts like the trachea that is probably just as important as organ meats.
The nutrients in organ meats are also more bioavailable, comprehensive, and balanced compared to actual multivitamin products made from compounded nutrient isolates.
The Indispensable Benefits of Organ Nutrients
Fat soluble vitamins like preformed vitamin A (retinol) are profoundly rejuvenative to the eyes, immune system, and nerves.
Having a full suite of B vitamins including copious amount of B12 is crucial for having resiliency to stress, and sustained physical and mental energy.
Include vitamin D and K in the mix and you have the ingredients of healthy bones and an optimally functioning immune system.
Organ meat nutrients are crucial for long term gut health and digestion, skin and joint health, mood and cognition, and in my opinion: total body wellbeing.
Organs are for primal health mastery.
In other words: healthy mastery. You are already a primal being. Time to holistically act like one and take back your birthright of being a badass healthy human.
My 2 favorite + EASIEST ways to consume organs:
1. Liverwurst and Braunschweiger Sausage
These ancestral blends can be ordered by the pound from US Wellness Meats and other grass fed pastured meat outlets online. They ship frozen and after thawing you can dig right into these precooked, perfectly spiced, moist, convenient staples.
"Tastes like muscle meat sausage but actually has a big dose of the top organ meats in every serving" is how I describe them.
2. Longevity Power's Ancestral product line
Years in the making, I am so proud to finally launch my ancestral nutrition line!
These are concentrated powders and are even more mild tasting than organ sausage but very densely packed with meticulous quality grass fed pastured concentrated organ powders and can be concealed into any meal, soup, hamburger, sauces, shakes and more.
No downing 6+ horse pills a day of low-dose organs like most organ supplements. These are formulated to give you a big dose in a small spoonful so you are still connected to the experience of eating organs but without all the preparation involved.
THRIVE Beef Liver & Bone Broth Powder and Ancestral Feast the effortless, inconspicuous, delicious staple for adding back in foundational primal nutrition to support you and your family’s most vibrant life!
These products make me feel buzzed off animal nutrition the way I do after eating a bunch of raw oysters. Huge dose of virility-giving zinc and several other hard to get minerals, vitamins, peptides, and aminos for rocking your health journey like an ancestral boss!
I'm Ready to Embrace Ancestral Nutrition
Cheers to making big leaps in your health progress and dialing in your lifestyle so you can be more happy and successful in all areas of life.
-Christian Bates
