Is liver still safe to eat?

Factual Questions
1

Given the near-endless list of unsavory things that cattle can be exposed to (hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, dioxin, heavy metals, etc., etc.), is it still safe to eat the liver and other innards of animals when those organs tend to be repositories of all that toxic gunk?

You say I’m blind, I say you’re hallucinating.

2

I’d say, given the fact that liver tastes disgusting, is reason enough to give it as wide a berth as possible!! patooie! :smiley:

Judy

“Um, according to who? Nothing more than a high brow troll, though occasionally the bi polar personality swung in a constructive direction on innocuous topics.” Omniscient

3

I always wondered the same thing. Cripes, the liver is like the air filter in a car, it collects all the stuff that your body doesn’t want in it. All that nasty poison and semi-poison. So why in the world would anybody choose to eat that part of an animal? Besides, it is pretty nasty.

4

Every now and then I want fried chicken livers, sprinkled with Worcestershire sauce, on a bed of rice. I think the key is “every now and then.” That way my liver gets a chance to trap whatever the chickens’ livers trapped, without being overwhelmed. Now that I think about it, I guess it is pretty disgusting. Oh well, probably my liver needs a workout, in the way that a toddler’s dirt eating is said to stimulate his immune system.

My child is utterly disgusted by my spouse’s and my eating liver, and has to struggle to remain in the room with us when we do so.

5

Doesn’t the liver release the toxins into the intestines as bile? It is like your car’s air filter but it’s cleaned a lot more regularly.

6

I know that you can get fatal Vitamin A poisoning from eating the liver of a carnivore such as a lion.

DHR

7

I have read, though who knows where, that liver and other organs meats contain more cholesterol, ounce for ounce, than the fat of the same animal. I quit eating liver so long ago that I can’t remember what it tastes like. I know it smells so rude, I don’t want to be in the same room with it. I can get iron from lettuce, and it doesn’t smell like THAT. Wooo.

AskNott

"Measure twice, cut once. Dang! Measure again, cut again.

8

I refer you to our esteemed host, Mrs. Adam’s smartest boy Cecil:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_218.html

  • Rick
9

In a thread in MPSIMS, I heard that a serving of pork brains contains over 10,000% of the amount of cholesterol you supposedly should eat per day. I don’t know about the other organs, though.

Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

10

I received a low-cholesterol diet from my doctor in the mail. It said that I should only eat brain once a month now.

I don’t even know where to buy brain and I live in Southern California where you can buy just about any animal part known to mankind.

I suppose the Grand Central Market in L.A. will have it. Lots of scary looking stuff there.