Carnivore questions - liver, marrow, etc

(Daisy) #1

Hi! So, I’ve played around a little with carnivore ofc and on, but now I’m going full on. So in doing that, I know need to get into the deeper “meat” of it all. But I have a few questions.

  1. I’ve never eaten liver. The thought is not exactly appealing to me, but I’m willing to give it a go. I have the beef liver that I requested with my cow. How should I fix it? I’ve searched recipe after recipe, typing liver without onions, and of course every recipe is for liver and onions. I didn’t eat onions even before carnivore.

  2. Bone marrow. How much and how often should I eat it? Yesterday I rendered beef tallow for the first time and also tried the cracklings (:heart_eyes:) and I also made a new batch of chicken bone broth. I made it a little different than I usually do and the bones were so soft after the first go that I tried to eat one. I didn’t hate it at all lol. But it made me wonder how much and how often I should eat it.

  3. What else should I be making sure to include in my diet. My butcher was not cooperative when I asked for “everything”. He refused to give me the hooves and he didn’t give me any organ other than the liver. So what do I truly “need” to make this sustainable, nutrient wise?
    Btw, I’ve spent a day searching this forum for these answers before posting but can’t quite find what I’m looking for.
    Thanks guys!

(Katie) #2

Check out these ladies’ channel. I recommend starting with these videos!

I prefer liver by itself (a little sea salt on top), cooked rare. It has a strong flavor that most people have to get used to. I actually crave it some days now though, I really enjoy it. You can mix it with ground beef if it is too intimidating at first, that is what a lot of people do.

I am not an expert, but as my opinion on what you need for a responsible, nutritious carnivore diet is mostly fatty red meat (you can have lean red meat too, depends on your preferred intake), and liver a few times a week (I think people usually average about 4oz-16oz per week). Add eggs if you want. Add other meats/fish if you want.

Based upon your post, it seems like you are overthinking it a little bit. The liver is a nutrient powerhouse, as are egg yolks. Those with the red meat make up a great diet, I think.

I also recommend checking out Dr. Paul Saladino’s website and podcast.

(Elizabeth ) #3

You don’t HAVE to eat/drink any of those, I know of only a tiny % of long term (5-20+ years) carnivores that bother. They don’t even eat grass fed. That being said, I like chicken livers wrapped in bacon then broiled, eaten them since I was a kid. And Mom cooked beef liver by cutting into small pieces, dipping in heavy cream then rolling in crush pork rinds and frying crispy in bacon fat.

(Chris) #4
  1. Just fry it in bacon fat or try different things.
  2. However much you want, as often as you feel like.
  3. What you like. Experiment if you want, or don’t.
(Bob M) #5

Those are good ideas.

#6

The grass fed beef liver I buy tastes worlds better than the liver from my local store. It’s got a bit of a sweetness to it. I like to put a couple of tbsps of ghee into a small cast iron pan and then put the liver in there (and salt/spices) just long enough to sear both sides. Fast, easy and tasty. A tbsp of mayo on top is even more yum if your diet allows for that. I also like to mix liver in with ground beef.

#7

I like to fry liver in beef tallow and butter. If no tallow then bacon grease is good, too.

(bulkbiker) #8

Butter in pan melted …slice liver thinly… season with salt and pepper.
Pan fry for a couple of minutes each side until dark and eat… if its still slightly pink in the middle it should be perfect and delicious.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

Liver is tasty, if not overcooked. When I was a child, my mother used to cook liver something like ten minutes on each side, and it always tasted like sandpaper. But I had a wonderful experience with some delicious liver in adulthood, and when I asked the cook what her secret was, she said that liver should never be cooked more than 90 seconds on each side.

Wash the liver in running water and dredge it in coconut or almond flour. Fry it in butter, lard, or bacon grease. Onions are strictly optional, but they should be almost completely cooked before you start sauteing the liver. The 90-second limit is somewhat variable, depending on the thickness of the pieces, but it’s a good guide.

Calf’s liver has a milder flavour than beef liver, so you might want to start with that. Chicken livers are a whole different matter, and you should probably asked a Jewish friend where to find a good recipe for chopped chicken liver, which is delicious (I like it almost as much as goose-liver pate).

As for bone marrow, if you slow-simmer your bones to make bone broth, by the time the broth is ready, much of the marrow will have leached out, and you can crunch on the bones for the remainder. Dr. Phinney suggests taking a cup or two of bone broth every day. You don’t need all that much marrow all that often, so just eat it when you feel like it, and don’t eat it when you don’t want to. If you really enjoy it, go for it!

As long as you are getting enough fat, you don’t really need to eat the animal “nose to tail.” Beef heart pretty much tastes like any other cut of beef, but kidneys can be tasty (if well-rinsed), and some cultures prize tripe. Head cheese (sausage made from the brain of the animal) used to be very popular in the U.S., but fear of hoof-and-mouth disease has pretty much caused brain to be removed from the U.S. market. (The prions don’t break down when cooked.) Sweetbreads are another delicacy, being the thymus gland of the animal.

If you want to get some idea of the possibilities, read Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, where she describes the butchering of a hog as part of the preparations for getting through the winter. She goes into quite a bit of detail about the meats used and the means of curing them.

(Elizabeth ) #10

This is a carnivore post and question so I would think that OP is looking for carnivore solutions :grin:

(Bob M) #11

I’ve heard Amber O’Hearn and Paul Saladino say they eat brains (sometimes raw) a lot. I think they were referring to cow brains, but I don’t know how they get them.

For my liver, I just slice as thinly as I can, which isn’t too thin, dry using paper towels, and sear over “high” heat using tallow. (I say “high” because my burners are gas and suck.) By the time I get all the pieces in for one pan, I’m turning the ones in earliest. And I’m done in not a lot of time.

I had some beef and chicken livers, and I thought the beef was way better. On the other hand, I love chicken hearts, but they are hard to find. The local farm sells out of them basically immediately.

(Daisy) #12

Thanks everyone! @pamplemousse, I listened to a couple of their videos today. Brilliant! I loved the bit about chopping the liver into tiny bits and freezing, then eating like vitamins! I will try to cook a piece, but if I hate it, I’m going to try that route :smile:
Thanks to everyone else, all great ideas and replies. I turned down Chick-fil-A this evening. Something is happening… lol

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #13

So leave off the nut flour, then . . . I was just giving my standard recipe, okay? My point still stands: Liver is tastes great as long as you don’t overcook it.

(Bob M) #14

I think Paul is correct. I HATED liver because my grandmother always cooked it to leather. It was only recently that I began liking it, and it took some “wimpy” recipes like liver and onions (I’m not a carnivore) before I finally got the guts to try it some other way.

By the way, if you can handle small amounts of spices, this is great liverwurst:

https://grasslandbeef.com/grass-fed-beef-liverwurst

They also have Braunschweige and head cheese (no brains, though), but they all have spices.

(Bunny) #15

Raw Bone Marrow now we’re talking! :+1:

That is extremely nutritious and better in my opinion, getting the full benefit of protomorphogens or DNA parts.

(mole person) #16

Do you have a sous vide, @Ketodaisy?

(Daisy) #17

I do not, sadly. One of the few things I don’t. It’s on my amazon wishlist lol

(Bob M) #18

Look for sales on Black Friday. These are great for meat and take a lot of the guesswork out of cooking it. Lamb chops, for instance, are great with sous vide, but are hard to get right otherwise.

(Marianne) #19

I’ve never eaten that, either - and am not going to.

Not eating that, either!

:rofl:

Maybe if I did, my hair wouldn’t be falling out en masse (which I don’t attribute to keto).

Good luck; I hear those two things are very good for you, and some people actually enjoy them.

(Daisy) #20

My hair started to do that too a couple weeks ago. Was freaking me out! I just realized that as soon as I went back to carnivore, it stopped! Hmmm…