Whats up with beef liver?

Beef liver is having a moment, and I’m not mad about it! Beef liver is one of those cool foods that are insanely healthy and utterly nasty…at least in my opinion. It has a unique taste that is hard to mask without completely destroying its nutritional benefit. It’s just a fact…or again, my opinion! I had never given beef liver much of a thought due to the fact that I’d rather die than eat it. Just the thought kinda turns my stomach a bit, Its an organ, its a little slimy by default, and it doesn’t taste good…yeah I’ll pass. About 2 1/2 years ago, I had a customer reach out about buying some for health reasons, she had a lot of questions about how it was raised and what had gone into it. She came to pick up a pack and shared with me her story. She had been severely anemic for years, which had lead to her having to receive blood transfusions monthly. Her body was simply unable to absorb iron and a lot of key minerals both naturally(through food)and through supplements. She was seeing a new Doctor and he recommended she try raw beef liver to see if her body would react better to it since it was more easily absorbable. She revolted at eating it raw, so he suggested she chop it into small pieces, freeze it, then swallow it in pill form, since frozen would mask the taste. An amazing 4-6 months later, she was off blood transfusions and her levels had returned to normal! At that point I was super intrigued, If you tell me something can be helpful in that magnitude, I get curious. This lead me down the research trail about beef liver.

Beef Liver has the nickname of “natures multivitamin” and for good reasons! Its an actual superfood and densely packed with vitamins and minerals that we so desperately need. It is quite literally one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet!


This is the nutritional info on about a 3 oz serving broken down a few ways:

•Vitamin B12: 3,460% of the RDI. Vitamin B12 helps the formation of red blood cells and DNA. It is also involved in healthy brain function

  • Vitamin A: 860–1,100% of the RDI. Vitamin A is important for normal vision, immune function and reproduction. It also helps organs like the heart and kidneys function properly

  • Riboflavin (B2): 210–260% of the RDI. Riboflavin is important for cellular development and function. It also helps turn food into energy

  • Folate (B9): 65% of the RDI. Folate is an essential nutrient that plays a role in cell growth and the formation of DNA

  • Iron: 80% of the RDI, or 35% for women of menstruating age. Iron is another essential nutrient that helps carry oxygen around the body. The iron in liver is heme iron, the kind most easily absorbed by the body

  • Copper: 1,620% of the RDI. Copper acts like a key to activate a number of enzymes, which then help regulate energy production, iron metabolism and brain function

  • Choline: Liver provides all of the Adequate Intake (AI) for women and nearly all of it for men (AI is used because there is insufficient evidence to set an RDI). Choline is important for brain development and liver function


Calories: 153

Liver is an excellent source of:

Liver is one of the best animal-based sources of vitamin A. A single serving of beef liver provides more than 100% of your daily vitamin A requirement. Getting enough vitamin A has been linked to a lower risk of conditions like cataracts and breast cancer.

Improved Bone Health

Liver is full of vitamin K, which is critical to the health of your bones. Vitamin K helps your body process calcium and add it to your bones. As a result, it helps you maintain the strength of your skeletal system. Getting enough vitamin K in your diet has been linked to a reduced risk of chronic conditions such as osteoporosis. Vitamin K is also important to maintaining the health of your circulatory system.



Hella cool right? In fact, liver is so densely packed with all the good things that you can in fact eat TOO MUCH. As you can see above, Liver has a high amount of vitamin A, crazy high, so more than about 3oz per day can lead to hypervitaminosis A. Or basically Vitamin A toxicity. This means you are absorbing more vitamin A than your own liver can process and are basically overloading your system. It’s also not recommended for pregnant women, Vitamin A needs to be ingested in much lower amounts when pregnant, and 1 oz of beef liver will cap that level, so definitely speak to a doctor about it if pregnant or trying to get pregnant. Basically, like everything, education is key here.

Since I don’t really want to eat liver as a meal, I’ve adopted the swallowing method and its basically impossible for you to consume too much this way. I stick to the ultra safe rule and try to stay under 4 oz a WEEK. I probably only ingest about 2-3 oz honestly, but I promise, even in such a small amount you will notice a difference! At the time that I started implementing this, I had gotten my blood tested for the first time in my adult life and was low on iron and several minerals. I also had lower energy, but As a millennial who had just started their own business, I just assumed this was my life now. My Doctor recommended some supplements but having some prior knowledge about my body, I knew that I don’t absorb supplements that well and instead asked her thoughts on me trying Beef liver. Luckily for me, my Doctor is pretty open to natural methods and went over a few guidelines(which I already knew and shared above.) and gave me the go ahead. I used this method for 2-3 months and came back for a re-test. My levels looked amazing and shockingly, my cholesterol had also DE-CREASED. This was the only thing I had changed during this time. I was hooked. The only outwardly noticeable change was an increase in energy in the fact that I no longer felt like taking a nap every day. I noticed outwardly changes when I STOPPED taking the liver, it’s amazing how much it impacted me without even realizing it. I was pumped!

First off, I cant STRESS ENOUGH, please run this past your Doctor, don’t just take the word of someone off the internet, this is just my own personal experience and I’m the furthest thing from a professional. SECOND, do NOT rush to the grocery store and grab liver to ingest raw. DON’T DO IT. Meat that is commonly sold in the grocery store is not good quality. Liver is how the body processes toxins and stress, so if the animal its harvested from was stressed or loaded with toxins, its in the liver. It just is. We don’t need to ingest MORE TOXINS. Be smart. Make sure if you try this method that you find a local farmer that you can trust, that their cows were grass fed or pasture raised, never given any antibiotics or added hormones, and that they were raised in a healthy, stress free environment. This is crucial!

Now that we have that covered…here is how you prep the liver!

Get the smallest pack you can find, our farm sells packs in 1/2-1 lb packs and thats perfect! Un-thaw just enough that you can safely cut it with a knife or scissors, and cut into pill sized pieces. You want them to be easily swallowed, so don’t cut them too big. Liver is rather “slimy” so leaving it mostly frozen really helps it be less messy and cut easier. I then “Flash” freeze them on a greased baking sheet. Its not really flash freezing, I just use my home freezer but I leave them uncovered for about 1 hour until they are mostly frozen solid again. Once its solid, I pack it up! You can store it one of two ways depending on how you want to ingest it. Personally, I lightly spray them with an olive oil spray and then place them in a freezer safe container all together since I take mine frozen! I’ll just pop two out at a time, the oil will keep them from sticking together too bad so you’ll be able to get them apart. If you are worried about swallowing something frozen, you can take small squares of parchment paper and place 4 pieces on the paper, and layer it with another piece of paper with more liver, and then continue layering paper and liver. This way you can take a piece of paper with the 4 pieces in it and place it in a bowl in the fridge to unthaw over night so you can swallow them but just not frozen. Personally, I swallow frozen since I want zero chance of being able to taste it. I’m told you can’t taste if you swallow with juice, but I’m too nervous to try. Either way you choose, Take in the morning and evening(2 pieces each time or 3-4 in the morning only) with juice or water! OJ is my drink of choice due to it being a thicker juice so it tricks my brain even more that it can’t taste it. Thats it! You can also freeze in larger chunks and add them to frozen smoothies if you don’t want to have to take it daily.

You will be able to go through your liver before you have to worry about it getting freezer burnt, and you will definitely notice a difference! If you don’t have any huge deficiencies you may not notice a huge outwardly difference, but you will notice one if you stop taking it! It can be such a slight daily difference taking it, but over time it really adds up in the changes you notice and feel. Beef liver is very cheap, especially compared to supplements and other additives that you can buy. My farm sells liver for $4 per lb, and 1 lb will last you a month or 2. $4 a month for a multivitamin? Yes please! If you try this, let me know! I’d love to hear your results! I’ve been taking it for 2 years now and love it, and I’m pumped about all the attention its been getting lately. Its a lot easier to be a weirdo when lots of other people are weirdos popping their beef liver pills along with you!

Tia Barrier