After decades of plant-based dogma in the West, the modern holistic health and nutrition community is embracing our ancient birthright and human-biological-necessity to thrive with ancestral animal-based foods.
The first step in shedding plant-based dogma (like the propaganda claiming that saturated fat and cholesterol contribute to heart disease, when in fact they do not and are crucial for metabolic, cardiovascular, and hormonal health) and embracing animal-based nutrition is to skip the seed oils and seed-based proteins and add in healthy pastured or wild muscle meats like grass fed beef and healthy animal fats like butter, tallow, and bone marrow.
The next step: Organ meats.
As nutritious, delicious, and foundational as muscle meat, animal fats, as well as eggs and dairy are, they are only about half the equation of animal-based eating because they don’t have all the therapeutic levels of fat-soluble vitamins, B vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and brain-boosting and immune-strengthening co-factor nutrients our species evolved to require.
But organ meats do.
We evolved (and our biology became dependent on the nutrition from) eating nose-to-tail and the bioavailable abundant nutrients in organ meats.
Here are my top 7 favorite and most nutrient-dense organ meats for optimal health for the modern holistic wellness truther:
1. Liver
Liver - especially from ruminant animals like beef - is by far the most nutritious animal food of all time. It is abundant in the most crucial pre-formed highly bioavailable nutrients that are just so hard to get anywhere else in such density. Retinol (preformed vitamin A) for our eyes and immune system, nearly all the B vitamins for stress and energy, choline for our brain, vitamin D and K2 for arterial wall, bone, joint and immune health, minerals like zinc and copper for hormonal health, heme-iron for cellular energy, and skin rejuvenating hyaluronic acid.
Liver is nature’s vigor-restoring multivitamin.
Click here for my full nutritional breakdown of liver and to learn about its anti-fatigue factor.
2. Heart
Heart is muscle meat with benefits. It’s like steak but with loads of CoQ10, vitamin B12, magnesium, and revitalizing elastin and heart peptides.
With organs, ‘like supports like’ and heart is excellent for cardiovascular health.
3. Blood
Blood is always drained from animals destined for human consumption. But, in fact it is extremely nutritious and is consumed fresh in many hunter-gatherer and traditional societies today. I’m a big fan of putting blood in ground beef to make blood sausage burgers. It’s rich in heme iron (the most bioavailable form of iron) for your own blood health, as well as red and white blood cells, platelets, and immune proteins. Even after having copious amounts of other organ meats for years, the first time I had blood I felt like a changed newly health-boosted person.
Blood really is life blood.
4. Kidney
Kidney is one of my favorites because it contains DAO enzymes which help reduce inflammation and histamine reactions which I theorize I had from food sensitivities over the years. It’s rich in vitamin B12, selenium, and kidney specific peptides.
Kidney is a crucial restorative food n my life.
5. Thymus
Thymus is the tastiest organ meat – technically a glandular - of all time. It - along with the slightly less of a delicacy pancreas - is called a sweetbread because it is not very meaty in flavor but more cheesy and slightly sweet. It’s the center of an animal’s lymphatic system and contains immune-strengthening thymus peptides like thymosin, thymopoietin and serum thymic factor.
My mouth waters when I think of thymus; it’s an immune-strengthening treasure.
6. Pancreas
Pancreas is rich in pancreatic peptides and enzymes like colipase and trypsin and is a powerhouse for those recovering from metabolic and digestive damage from an industrial or overly-plant based modern diet.
Eating pancreas is a rebellious act in an era of diabetes.
7. Brain
I only consume beef brain from continents that don’t have mad cow disease, or from local animals like lamb that don’t get mad cow. It’s the highest source of brain-boosting anti-inflammatory long chain omega-3 fatty acids in terrestrial animals. I love seafood for its omega-3 content too, but these days I’m eating a bit less sea food because of the microplastic issue and to a lesser extent mercury issue and so I choose to partially replace sea food with brain. Brain has neurotrophic factor and sphingomyelin.
‘Like supports like’ so I feel that it's supportive for my brain function, nervous system, and mental wellbeing to consume the cortex, pineal gland, pituitary and hypothalamus in brain to nourish every part of my body and nervous system like a primal boss!
Bonus #8: Connective Tissue
Connective tissue should really be considered an organ. So this is top organ #8. Connective tissues from joint bone broth combined with high cartilage portions of an animal like beef trachea contain Types I, II, and III collagen, are rich in the amino acid glycine and glycosaminoglycans, proteoglycans and chondroitin sulfates.
Combining muscle meat with organ meats and especially connective tissue is key for having an optimal sufficiency and balance of amino acids for performance, recovery, and joint and skin health.
How to Get on all the organs and their benefits
In a traditional lifestyle, we would have access to all these organs with every slaughter of a farm animal or hunt of a majestic beast. But these days, even for the most hardcore ancestral eater willing to special order from the butcher, juggling the freezing, thawing, preparing, and cooking of organ meats makes it very challenging to have a consistent variety of them for optimal nutrition.
That’s why I created Longevity Power's Ancestral Feast which contains every single one of my favorite organs, glands and connective tissues I just described in a pleasant-tasting instant powder.
Every meal on which you put a spoonful of Ancestral Feast becomes and ancestral feast! An upgraded breakfast, lunch, supper or snack for primal wellbeing mastery!
No matter what the modern depleted diet world says, you will always be a hunter-gatherer, so fully nourish yourself like one!
To experience the potential nutrient-inadequacy-reversing, health-improving, cognition-boosting, stress-reducing potential of eating meticulous quality grass-fed, pasture-raised antibiotic/hormone-free organ meats with ultimate convenience and versatility, grab yourself a jar of Ancestral Feast today.
Ancestral Feast is available in Pure Carnivore, Garlic & Sage, and Fajita Lime blends.
Cheers to you taking primal steps every day to feel more human and more alive despite the modern world while finding more fulfillment and love in your life.
With love,
Christian Bates
P.S. Stay tuned for more in my Ancestral Eating 101 series. Want to learn more about what the nutrients in organ meats do for your body, then read my article Organ Meats are Nature's Multivitamins (and help you kick butt at health and life!)
