Here at the Sears Institute we have lunch together on Fridays. It’s my way of saying thank you to my staff for all their hard work.
To replace the “missing food group” in our modern diet, I served all kinds of organ meat at our last catered lunch.
And of course, our meal is Primal… with lots of high-quality protein and healthy fats.
We usually have a choice of grass-fed meatloaf or coconut crusted wild-caught salmon. Side dishes are deviled eggs, kale salad with cranberries and pecans, beets with goat cheese and pumpkin seeds — and a new favorite, cauliflower mac and cheese.
But last Friday, I had a specialty platter delivered…
The reviews ran the gamut from “Wow, this is great!” to “Gross, I don’t even want to try it.”
But I think I managed to win over the naysayers. Most of my staff told me they were pleasantly surprised.
My unusual lunch platter contained:
- Bacon wrapped chicken hearts
- Southern fried chicken gizzards
- Chicken gizzard meatballs
- Spicy chicken livers
I added the organ meats to the menu because they’re some of the best sources of nutrition we’re lacking in our modern diet… What I call the missing food group.
And it’s causing a malnutrition epidemic in our country. That might sound strange, considering that we’re one of the best-fed nations on Earth.
Yet, when it comes to Primal nutrition, your body is starving to death.
But it’s not your fault. For years, you’ve been lied to about our modern-day food supply.
Thanks to Big Agra, along with government agencies like the FDA and USDA, foods we’ve been told are “healthy” and “nutritious” are anything but. In fact, they’ve been stripped of crucial vitamins, minerals, proteins, amino acids and other compounds.
Acting together, these substances perform thousands of roles in your body.
They help build your bones, heal wounds, convert food into energy and more. They stimulate stem cell production, boost your immune system and regenerate damaged tissues and organs.
Without them, your body is flooded with inflammation. And you remove any natural protection against chronic conditions like diabetes, cancer and heart disease.1
We have turned over food production to third-party producers that don’t have nutrition or your health as their primary goal. Of course, their primary goal is to make a profit.
And that’s not a good way for you to get the nutrients that you are designed for. What makes it even harder is that most traditional doctors still follow the USDA’s outdated food guides.
The USDA isn’t looking out for you or me or any American. Its mission is to promote industrial agriculture. They recommend that you get half your daily calories from bread, pasta, rice and cereals. The carbohydrate-rich processed foods I call “carbage.”
If you actually followed that plan you’d be sick and diseased in no time at all.
That’s why I devised a system to help you get the nutrients you need to thrive in our unhealthy world.
It’s a 4-tiered nutrition pyramid that actually makes sense. Over the course of the next month, I’ll explain each level in detail.
The foundation of my nutrition pyramid starts with Primal Nutrition.
That means eating to meet your evolutionary needs. Basically, you are correcting the mismatch between our toxic modern world and the world we were built to live in.
And that’s where the organ meats come in…
You see, our ancestors ate every part of what they caught. So bringing back the “missing food group” is an important step in Primal nutrition.
For years I’ve referred to organ meat, especially liver, as America’s forgotten superfood. It may have fallen out of favor recently. But our parents and grandparents ate it often.
These meats are packed with every key nutrient your body needs — including heart-healthy CoQ10 as well as heavy doses of B vitamins, such as B1, B2, B6, folic acid and B12.
Organ meats are also loaded with key minerals like magnesium, iodine, potassium, selenium, zinc and manganese and provide the important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
And organ meat is a powerhouse when it comes to the brain and energy nutrient choline, healthy fats and essential amino acids.
To bring back what we’re missing, the first step is to eat like our ancestors.
Replenish Your Missing Nutrients with
Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Livers
To get back the nutrients that have been stripped from our modern food supply, I want to share my grandmother’s recipe for bacon-wrapped chicken livers.
Ingredients:
- 1 pound bacon
- 1 pound grass-fed chicken liver dry
- Garlic salt
Directions:
- Cut bacon strips in half
- Wash and pat livers dry
- Sprinkle with garlic salt
- Wrap each liver in a slice of bacon. Secure with a toothpick.
- Place livers on a baking sheet. Broil 6-8 minutes on each side.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD, CNS
P.S. Stay tuned! For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more information about the next three levels of my Nutrition Pyramid — and what you can do to bring back your Primal health.
References
1. Watkins BA, et al. “Nutraceutical fatty acids as biochemical and molecular modulators of skeletal biology.” J Am Coll Nutr. 2001;20(5 Suppl):410S-416S.