Hell yeah, y'all! As daunting as it may sound, raw liver consumption in our modern world just requires a little creativity and courage – assuming we take care to assure food safety.
Fresh air and sunshine are huge protective factors for animals. Animals raised outdoors convert sunshine to vitamin D, and consume the natural foods that provide them with vitamin A (both of which provide as much insurance against infection for them, as for us). Hence, healthy animals are not plagued with the parasites, disease or bacteria that their conventional counterparts suffer from.
Liver is hands down the most nutrient dense and utterly energizing super food on the planet. Is it just happenstance that the word “live” is contained in the word “liver”? Ladies and gentlemen, in life, I apparently love to take on more than I can chew. I burn the candle at both ends. And, I'd bet dollars to donuts more than a few of you do the same.
Life is a blip in time and let's devour every precious moment. I relish the opportunity to live life with as little suffering as is possible and with as much surging positive energy as this abundent universe offers up. I love doing liver shooters in my cooking and nutrition classes. It's a true bonding and energizing event! Want more energy? Live life like you mean it! Live it with liver!
Liver Facts
- A highly usable form of iron
- Trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium; liver is our best source of copper
- An unidentified anti-fatigue factor
- CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardio-vascular function
- A good source of purines, nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA.
- Nature's most concentrated source of vitamin A
- All the B vitamins in abundance which are critical for adrenal function
- One of our best sources of folate (much more bio-available than the synthetic form we know as folic acid)
(source)
Raw liver shooter ingredients
- 1 inch piece of beef liver ONLY from pasture raised cows and previously frozen for 14 days (buy grassfed beef here)
- 6 oz. organic tomato juice, preferably from 1 medium tomato (see method below)
- 1/4 teaspoon Tabasco OR 1/8 teaspoon spicy hot sauce and 1/8 apple cider vinegar
- Juice of 1 half lime, preferably organic
- Pinch of unrefined sea salt (buy quality sea salt here)
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger juice (optional)
Raw liver shooter method
- If you have a juicer, juice one medium size tomato. If you don't have a juicer, place the tomato in a blender and pour through a fine strainer into a measuring cup and add 6 oz tomato juice to blender.
- Add liver (Super scared? Finely grate 1 tablespoon frozen liver into blender), tabasco, lime juice, pinch, ginger juice and blend.
- Pour into 1 or multiple shot glasses.
- Down your shooter/s immediately and complete your ritual by sucking on a little lime wedge. Do this with friends and make it fun!
- Bask in the amazing Vitamin B energy that your body will soak up and put to good use throughout the day!
Chef's Notes:
- For convenience, I highly suggest you make a large batch of this recipe and freeze it in ice cubes. When you are ready for a shooter, put the liver shoot ice cube in your blender, allow it to defrost slightly, blend and shoot.
- Please don't push yourself. If you only want to do half a shot the first time or first 7 times, it's okay. Progress, not perfection. Perfection is boring and you aren't boring! You're an amazing evolving bursting light!
Active Time: 10 minutes
Yields: 1-3 shots
This post was generously contributed by Monica Ford of Real Food Devotee. Monica's delicious recipes will make your mouth water and your tummy purr.
If you're lucky enough to live in Los Angeles, Real Food Devotee can make your life easier by delivering nutrient dense goodies directly to your door.
Photo credit: An Eye Full Studio
Do you have a favorite way to consume raw liver? Tell us about it in a comment below!
Raw liver is a source of folate, not folic acid which is the synthetic form.
Thanks, Alison. You are absolutely right. 🙂
Liver is a filter.
Hi Tonia – Yes, the liver is a filter, but when an animal is properly raised, that filter is not overloaded with toxins. That is why the source of the liver is so essential.
I thought this article on Liver from The Weston A. Price Foundation was so informative about. Here’s a little quote but, click the link to read more:
“One of the roles of the liver is to neutralize toxins (such as drugs, chemical agents and poisons); but the liver does not store toxins. Poisonous compounds that the body cannot neutralize and eliminate are likely to lodge in the fatty tissues and the nervous system. The liver is not a storage organ for toxins but it is a storage organ for many important nutrients (vitamins A, D, E, K, B12 and folic acid, and minerals such as copper and iron). These nutrients provide the body with some of the tools it needs to get rid of toxins.
Of course, we should consume liver from healthy animals–cattle, lamb, buffalo, hogs, chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese. The best choice is liver from animals that spend their lives outdoors and on pasture. If such a premier food is not available, the next choice is organic chicken, beef and calves liver. If supermarket liver is your only option, the best choice is calves liver, as in the U.S. beef cattle do spend their first months on pasture. Beef liver is more problematical as beef cattle are finished in feed lots. Livers from conventionally raised chicken and hogs are not recommended.”
http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/liver-files
Maybe someday I’ll develop the courage… I have a ton of liver in my freezer that I am very successfully avoiding. 🙂
@Leslie I totally get it! For a while there I would buy beautiful pasture raised liver seemingly to just store it in my freezer. Truth be told, I still only eat organ meats when cleverly disguised. And it took a great deal of courage and adventuring spirit to work up to that! Deliver shooters are scary at first! But, the mental clarity, focus and steady energy I get from them transforms the course of my day to the positive. And that vibrant health and energy, my friend, is yours and my birthright! So, eeeeew factor be damned! I dare u to feel like a super human. I double dog dare u! Xo
Oh my, how DID you know? I’ve been thinking of doing this for months! “I have a ton of liver in my freezer that I am very successfully avoiding”… lol, that’s just too perfect Leslie. Me too. I have tried a liver pate and fried liver with bacon and onions, I have tried grinding it and mixing it in a 25/75 liver to burger mixture which I made into meatballs and served with a spicy tomato sauce and also made into meatloaf. Honestly, nobody in my family is keen on any of it, including me, so I had decided to just try it raw with tomato juice. That was Pottenger, right? Anyway… I LOVE your shooters idea. Definitely next on my “do it” list. Especially after reading your description of the afterbuzz!
I love it, @Bebe
Ladies, please share your experience after trying it. Please differentiate between the taste and mind thing. Because our minds are strong and I know I was motivated to create this recipe because my mind was screaming NO!!!!!!!! EEEWWWW!!!
You might also check out this recipe. Fooled some folks with this one http://www.holistickid.com/nutrient-dense-meatloaf/
You’re right about the afterbuzz though. Totally worth facing the fear. Rock on, brave hearts!
I am actually soaking some chicken livers in milk as we ‘speak’ to turn into pate. I definitely like them better than beef liver. I also love liverwurst and pate from pork livers. After comparing ingredient lists from favorite store bought liver products I think one of the differences might be that they use muscle meat along with the liver whereas all my pate recipes have used only the liver.
I will be trying your meatloaf recipe when I defrost the next liver for shooters.
So funny @Bebe I’m making Berkshire Pork Pate this weekend. If you’d like to take a peek into my pate class, check this out. Happy pate production:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMk0L9fFeDQ
Thank you for your submission on Nourishing Treasures’ Make Your Own! Monday link-up.
Check back later tonight when the new link-up is running to see if you were one of the top 3 featured posts! 🙂
O.k. Monica, I watched the youtube video of your class and I noticed you used pork liver. I wish I could find a source as it’s much milder than beef, which is, of course, what I have. That and moose liver, which I have yet to try because I have myself convinced it will be even stronger flavored than beef. Have you been successful in using beef liver… for anything?
I also made Jenny’s Sage and Chicken Liver Pate from Nourished Kitchen: http://nourishedkitchen.com/chicken-liver-pate/#comment-12521 and it is luscious. She didn’t list salt as an ingredient and I assumed it was an inadvertent omission and added about a teaspoon. I also left off the top coat of butter.
Finally, I made some liver shooters using bottled spicy tomato/vegetable juice and some of the juice from a jar of pickled ginger because those were what I had on hand. I have to say, the ginger juices really made it. I am going to try finely grating the frozen liver for my next go ’round. I think there will be even less liver taste coming through than when blended.
Hey @Bebe you Liver Super Hero, you!!! Wow! I’m so impressed. I think that either the moose or beef liver would be perfectly and beautifully disguised in this recipe: http://www.holistickid.com/nutrient-dense-meatloaf/
I like the ginger juice. Yum! So, tell us, how did you feel after the liver shooter? I mean, other than courageous.
Actually, I have had a nice glow for the past couple days. But honestly, I have been craving super-power food fuel. I did drink the liver shooters (four final shots yesterday because I ended up with about eight ounces and I didn’t want it to sit around and either get wasted or start tasting nasty) which I drank literally out of a shot glass. Pour a little ginger juice into bottom of shot glass and pour liver shooter mixture on top and shoot it. That way you get lovely ginger juice rivulets as the shooter hits the taste buds. Follow with wee wedge of lime to erase all vestiges of liver taste that might have thought about lingering on these lips. Ah well, that was refreshing. And yes, I did feel brave. But I digress. I ALSO was eating that chicken liver pate I was telling you about AND a lovely mousse de sardine (found the recipe on pinterest, had to try it!) WITH homemade lacto-fermented mayo and sliced red onions. And I have finally got myself up to the whole forty minute kettlebell workout after only ever doing the quick 12 minute fat blast workout. So, yeah, there was a lot working in favor of that glowy feeling. I’ll let you know next time I do it, but tonight is raw oyster night and I’m not mixing my oyster high with liver!
Wow @Bebe I bet you do have a glow!! You’re my hero!
O.k., here’s my update: I decided to try the liver shooter without blending because I figured there would be less *contamination* of the juice and ginger flavors if the liver was just being transported, rather than blended. I grated a little chunk (about 1″x1/2″x 1/4″ thick piece) of frozen liver, using my microplane grater which is pretty fine. I put a little splash of pickled ginger juice (maybe 1/2 t.) in the bottom of the shot glass, about half the grated liver (which thaws super fast and gets kinda sticky) on top of the ginger juice then topped off with spicy tomato juice (the Knudsen brand version of V-8) and tipped it back. Voila! NO liver taste. None. At all. So I repeated with the rest of the grated liver, making two shots go down, easy peasy.
I still plan to make your meatloaf but was out of town for a couple days. The good news is that I brought back some ground moose sausage that I’m going to use instead of beef in the meatloaf. That ought to put it over the top! Stay tuned…
@Bebe I just love how you took this and ran with it. I love your creativity and I so want to come to your house for dinner….hint hint.
Let us know how the moose sausage turns out! I love experimenting with out of the ordinary meats. fun!!!
Dang girl, you are welcome to stop in any time you are in my neck of the woods. You know I’m in Alaska, right? I’d bust out the liver shooters AND the tequila. Lol… just say the word. 😉
@Bebe OMG!!!!! I was just talking about making a break for Alaska for a little break!!!! Sounds like fun!
But if you are looking for beauty, postpone that trip until May. Right now we be lookin’ uuuugly! We had a long. cold. snowy. winter and there are still a few inches of snow covering parts of our yard. The grass underneath is brown and where there is no snow or brown grass there is mud. Lots of mud. And leafless trees. Yeah. This is called breakup and breakup is not a pretty sight. Fortunately we have had nearly three weeks straight of glorious sunshine so breakup is happening fast. Everybody is smiling more these days and even the animals are in heaven. I caught our husky laying on top of her dog house, on her back with her legs spread and her belly facing the sun. I nearly busted a gut. Wish I’d had a camera with me.
Duely noted! And please do post a photo of you catch that again!
Could you do this with chicken livers? I have some in my freezer as I’ve been meaning to get liver into our diets, but like others, haven’t gotten them out and they are just sort of collecting in my freezer. Of ourse, the chicken livers are from my farmer’s pastured chickens. Thanks for a great idea!
Absolutely! Liver from chickens raised on pasture are a great choice! Remember to freeze them for 2 weeks before shooting them down the hatch. Enjoy!
I have beef liver that I bought frozen. I am wondering if it would be ok to thaw out and soak (to get the blood out) then re freez to be used in the shooters.
Hi @Tye
You can! xo
Ok I did it.. I am super scared I will get violently ill an start throwing up any minute!!!
It wasn’t unpleasant…. I did not follow this recipe.. Instead I dumped the grated pasture raises beef liver in my kale, carrot, apple, ginger juice and threw it back and then sucked a lemon in some Celtic sea salt in the spirit of your post ;p
Great idea @Monique
I love that you worked it into what is already happening in your kitchen life! Nice! You’ll not be ill. You’ll be well. And if you do it often, you’ll have much more energy than most other people. Enjoy!
I LOVE this idea! I’m on the hunt for ways to knock back liver because I really benefit from it and this looks promising! The capsules have been nice but are definitely pricier than just buying liver.