Is A Freeze- Dried Organ Complex Adequate Liver Substitute?

[akgrrrl]

Liver and onions at dinner when I was a kid was the most dreaded ordeal. The search for a nutritious substitute without the taste and texture that I cannot enjoy has led me to a heart, kidney, and liver complex by PaleoValley. This item claims freeze dried organ meats from pasture raised cows. Other than the obvious elimination of liver as a masticated meal for digestive process and nutrient absorption, can any forum member offer an assessment or experience of this as a liver substitute?

 

[xeliex]

I think Dr. Peat in the past was skeptical due to quality control issues. I think some companies now see the demand and try to uphold the standard.

 

[akgrrrl]

Thankyou for the reply. I did get a bottle but it did not agree with me. I have determined that I just cannot do dead flesh organ meats.

 

[Orius]

I make my own desiccated liver pills and they're awesome. Taking some daily has improved my life in so many ways. Eating freshly cooked liver is probably better but I don't really care because I'm getting results.

If you research the vitamin components of liver, most are not destroyed in the desiccation process.

 

[akgrrrl]

Oh

I make my own desiccated liver pills and they're awesome. Taking some daily has improved my life in so many ways. Eating freshly cooked liver is probably better but I don't really care because I'm getting results.

If you research the vitamin components of liver, most are not destroyed in the desiccation process.

Oh nice! Are you drying pieces in the oven or dehydrater then pulverize to powder with a Vitamix or other?

 

[Waremu]

I agree with the other poster on here as well, that freeze dried should be okay. Most of the nutrients in liver are very stable to heat and some light. Just make sure it is a high quality supplement. The brand I like the most right now is the ancestral supplements liver supplement. If you look at their website, they give an amount of choline and other nutrients it has, which shows they likely have the quality control of the liver down fairly well. No additives either. I even notice it has a higher vitamin content than other brands I've used which further suggests it is higher quality. It is however a little more on the expensive side, but hey, I am sure part of that is because it is probably better quality than other brands.

Ancestral Supplements - Grass Fed (Desiccated Liver, Heart, Pancreas...)

 

[Waremu]

If you have a dehydrator, it is quite easy to make your own dissicated liver on the cheap too. I make mine with local grass fed liver from the Amish farmer... similar to this blog:

Thankful Expressions: How to Make Desiccated Liver Capsules

Dehydrate it,



Blend it into powder..



Then pour into capsules...

• 2 pills/day = 1 oz./week

• 4 pills/day = 2.25 oz./week

• 6 pills/day = 4.5 oz/week

I keep the liver powder capsules in this to protect it from light, to be on the safe side:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BD3CDMR/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_5?smid=A161N87RPOYCTY&psc=1

YUUUUM

 

[Jennifer]

I agree with the other poster on here as well, that freeze dried should be okay. Most of the nutrients in liver are very stable to heat and some light. Just make sure it is a high quality supplement. The brand I like the most right now is the ancestral supplements liver supplement. If you look at their website, they give an amount of choline and other nutrients it has, which shows they likely have the quality control of the liver down fairly well. No additives either. I even notice it has a higher vitamin content than other brands I've used which further suggests it is higher quality. It is however a little more on the expensive side, but hey, I am sure part of that is because it is probably better quality than other brands.

Ancestral Supplements - Grass Fed (Desiccated Liver, Heart, Pancreas...)

Oh, perfect! Thank you for posting your opinion, Waremu. :) I was looking at some of Ancestral's formulas a few nights ago, debating if I should try them. I wasn't sure if they would be a good enough replacement for fresh tissues. I remembered Ray's opinion on them. I just really dislike most animal parts and figured this was an easy way to get them down without having to taste them much. lol

 

[akgrrrl]

Yes, grateful thanks for replying to my query so completely with pics and links. I will give this another try.

 

[Orius]

I don't have a dehydrator so I put the slices in the oven on 170F for 24 hours.

It's less expensive to make them yourself but it takes more effort obviously. I like adding Chinese herbs and whole food vitamin C powder to mine. That's the other benefit, you can add whatever you want!

 

[akgrrrl]

I don't have a dehydrator so I put the slices in the oven on 170F for 24 hours.

It's less expensive to make them yourself but it takes more effort obviously. I like adding Chinese herbs and whole food vitamin C powder to mine. That's the other benefit, you can add whatever you want![/QUOTE

Thanks Orius yet another good addition to this thread. Of course, if I proceed as Waremu has provided step by step instruction, and additives as desired, the effort becomes multifunctional. I like.

 

[BigChad]

I don't have a dehydrator so I put the slices in the oven on 170F for 24 hours.

It's less expensive to make them yourself but it takes more effort obviously. I like adding Chinese herbs and whole food vitamin C powder to mine. That's the other benefit, you can add whatever you want!

Freeze drying would be better for nutrient preservation?

 

[Orius]

Freeze drying would be better for nutrient preservation?

For short term yes. Long term no. I work in the herbal industry and freeze drying creates micro pores in food which allows more oxygenation through increased surface area. The nutrient profile is more preserves but degrades faster. So you need to use the product quicker.

I desiccate liver at 55 degrees C for 2 days and so far the results are awesome. B vitamins and retinol are not terribly degraded by heat, but light more so.

Some purists eat raw liver but I would puke.

 

[BigChad]

For short term yes. Long term no. I work in the herbal industry and freeze drying creates micro pores in food which allows more oxygenation. The nutrient profile is more preserves but degrades faster. So you need to use the product quicker.

I desiccate liver at 55 degrees C for 2 days and so far the results are awesome. B vitamins and retinol are not terribly degraded by heat, but light more so.

Some purists eat raw liver but I would puke.

Interesting. Where did you find this info. Isnt 55C too warm and denaturing

 

[ecstatichamster]

I cook calf’s liver medium rare, then grind it up and make a pate.

It tastes really good. And it is probably relatively unharmed chemically.

I think freeze dried are okay if you won’t eat liver and have no other way to get liver. But they are a poor substitute for real liver. Just my intuition. I can’t prove it.

 

[Orius]

I don't have a source, just industry experience and many years of talking about this with other formulators.

Freeze drying hit the herbal scene in 1986, with the introduction of freeze dried feverfew. This followed a clinical trial of feverfew which used a freeze-dried form. The original story of feverfew in England was that migraine sufferers would grow their own plants in pots, and eat some fresh leaves every day. So the breakthrough trial mimicked the fresh leaf from tradition with a freeze-dried product. For experimental purposes it was freeze-dried and placed in a nitrogen atmosphere under refrigeration in amber bottles. So the fd feverfew, produced with a freeze drying facility in California, was a smash seller on the premise that fd is better than dried. One company then started an entire line of FD herbal products in capsules, and claimed that their freeze-dried nettle product was superior to other forms of nettles. I won't go into details, but neither the feverfew trials or the urtica trial actually showed much benefit to the patient. In other words, they were better than placebo but the majority had either no benefit, or just a slight benefit, but neither were clinically relevant. One of the large herb farms in the pacific northwest considered placing a freeze drying facility on their property until they researched the information I am giving below.

When you freeze dry something fresh, the water is turned to ice. Then it is placed in a vacuum, which removes the water as vapor (sublimation) without it actually getting the plant wet as it would if just melted. Now wherever you had water, you have a "pore". The thing looks like swiss cheese under a microscope, and every one of those pores is an avenue for a) volatile components to escape and b) other components to oxidize. Compare this to regular drying which may oxidize the surface of the material, but as the
material astringes with drying it encases the internal material. So the result is, unless you keep the fd material under nitrogen and away from heat and light it degrades faster than regular dried material. It is not practical for commercial purposes. It sounds good, but it is not. This is not a theoretical statement, I've had a chance to examine a wide variety of fd products that were encapsulated for the marketplace, and many of them, 3 months after freeze drying, resemble dried up dirt with the aroma gone.

The same is true of meats. In traditional pre-modern cultures, meats are preserved through drying in the sun on flakes or through smoking/curing. Both methods astringe the exterior of the meat while preserving the interior. There may be some nutrient loss on the exterior portion but the inner preservation is superior.

When I desiccate liver, I then grind it into powder. This increases the surface area and exposure to oxygen. However, that powder gets encapsulated immediately, and the capsules are air tight. The capsules are then stored in amber jars. They get ingested within 30-60 days max.

So you get the idea.

I think fd is mostly hype and also from clinical experience I find it creates an inferior product.

 

[akgrrrl]

I don't have a source, just industry experience and many years of talking about this with other formulators.

Freeze drying hit the herbal scene in 1986, with the introduction of freeze dried feverfew. This followed a clinical trial of feverfew which used a freeze-dried form. The original story of feverfew in England was that migraine sufferers would grow their own plants in pots, and eat some fresh leaves every day. So the breakthrough trial mimicked the fresh leaf from tradition with a freeze-dried product. For experimental purposes it was freeze-dried and placed in a nitrogen atmosphere under refrigeration in amber bottles. So the fd feverfew, produced with a freeze drying facility in California, was a smash seller on the premise that fd is better than dried. One company then started an entire line of FD herbal products in capsules, and claimed that their freeze-dried nettle product was superior to other forms of nettles. I won't go into details, but neither the feverfew trials or the urtica trial actually showed much benefit to the patient. In other words, they were better than placebo but the majority had either no benefit, or just a slight benefit, but neither were clinically relevant. One of the large herb farms in the pacific northwest considered placing a freeze drying facility on their property until they researched the information I am giving below.

When you freeze dry something fresh, the water is turned to ice. Then it is placed in a vacuum, which removes the water as vapor (sublimation) without it actually getting the plant wet as it would if just melted. Now wherever you had water, you have a "pore". The thing looks like swiss cheese under a microscope, and every one of those pores is an avenue for a) volatile components to escape and b) other components to oxidize. Compare this to regular drying which may oxidize the surface of the material, but as the
material astringes with drying it encases the internal material. So the result is, unless you keep the fd material under nitrogen and away from heat and light it degrades faster than regular dried material. It is not practical for commercial purposes. It sounds good, but it is not. This is not a theoretical statement, I've had a chance to examine a wide variety of fd products that were encapsulated for the marketplace, and many of them, 3 months after freeze drying, resemble dried up dirt with the aroma gone.

The same is true of meats. In traditional pre-modern cultures, meats are preserved through drying in the sun on flakes or through smoking/curing. Both methods astringe the exterior of the meat while preserving the interior. There may be some nutrient loss on the exterior portion but the inner preservation is superior.

When I desiccate liver, I then grind it into powder. This increases the surface area and exposure to oxygen. However, that powder gets encapsulated immediately, and the capsules are air tight. The capsules are then stored in amber jars. They get ingested within 30-60 days max.

So you get the idea.

I think fd is mostly hype and also from clinical experience I find it creates an inferior product.

THANKYOU for your thoughtful, detailed explanation on this thread. Your industry experience gave good practical perspective to understanding freeze drying that we can apply in our lives...herbs...meat, etc. I love my Ray Peat Forum because of contributors like you. GLORY!

 

[tygertgr]

Heck of a lot easier to just find a local gourmet delicatessen with a good liverwurst sausage. Have two or three liverwurst sandwiches a week.

 

[Orius]

Heck of a lot easier to just find a local gourmet delicatessen with a good liverwurst sausage. Have two or three liverwurst sandwiches a week.

I don't want to ingest nitrates or other preservatives. Also those liver sausages are often mixed with other meat like pork which I don't want.

 

[akgrrrl]

Nitrates and fats from unknown sources of beef and pork dont make liver taste better