I just ate something. Should I worry?

Factual Questions
1

I found some chicken livers in the freezer. Why not? I put som Cajun-style fish fry on them and popped them into hot oil. As I was munching away I bit into something unexpected. It burst like a juicy grape and there was an awful taste in my mouth. A sharp taste that hit the back of my tongue. Not acidic, but… have you ever accidentally got a taste of rubbing alcohol? Really bitter.

First: What could possibly be in a chicken liver that would taste like that? Second: should I worry? Some of it did go down the back of my throat, though I did manage to regurgitate the top layer, as it were.

2

Wonder if it was a gall bladder or something?

3

It’s possible that you only bit into a gall bladder that someone left on by mistake. But, there’s always the chance that something grew in the livers before you cooked them. Do you know how long they were in the freezer? Or where they were before they got frozen?

On the plus side, if you fried them, odds are you killed whatever it might have been, if it was anything other than a gall bladder.

4

Not being an anatomist, is the gall bladder attached to the liver?

Former roomie put them in the freezer with the intention of making paté at some point. They’d been there a while, but fully frozen. Other than that nasty burst-o-nastiness, they tasted fine.

5

Okay, I found a page that indicates the gall bladder and liver are together.

And that explains the incredibly bitter taste.

So it sounds as if I didn’t poison myself.

6

And I also found this on a recipe page:

Green, eh? I think I did see a flash of dark green when I put the livers in the oil, but I didn’t think anything of it.

7

Yeah, the gall bladder is right next to the liver. Bile allows you to digest fats. Bile is produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder (in species that have gall bladders) until it is released into the small intestine after a meal. That icky taste you get when you have the dry heaves is you tasting your own bile, brought up from your small intestine.

The gall bladder doesn’t look anything like the liver, which is why it usually doesn’t get missed by the butcher. Usually.

ETA: Yup, sounds like that’s what we’ve got. Good thing. There are some nasty parasites that I wouldn’t want to eat, even if they were dead and not infectious to humans anyhow. :slight_smile:

8

I think the problem here is that you ate something called “chicken livers”…::hurk::

9

Still got that link? I’d be interested in seeing the pics.

10

I love that Pullet answered this.

11

Actually there weren’t any pics. But Here’s the link.

12

I did notice that. :slight_smile:

13

My chicken sense started tingling as soon as Jonny L.A. posted the thread.

You should do that more often :wink:

14

I thought it might have been your Super Vision.

15

I can think of nothing quite so disgusting as a chicken liver.
Don’t eat chicken.
Don’t eat liver.

Where’s the puke smiley when you really need one?

16

Whereas you find chicken gall bladders a tasty treat?

17

I love chicken liver. I love beef liver. I love liver with or without onions, because I love the taste of liver. Mmmm… liver.

Bile, on the other hand, is nasty.

18

I am officially grossed out…

I can handle the zit threads…the big spider threads…the tmi threads.

This, I cannot handle.

19

Well, the way the gall bladder burst it was kind of like a giant pus-filled zit, only on a filtration unit.

20

You know how sometimes something will taste like how something else smells? For reasons I can’t explain, fried chicken livers taste like the way formaldehyde preserved dogs smell.