Top 10 Health Benefits of Eating Organ Meats

Organ meats have been a staple in traditional diets for centuries. Yet, modern eating habits often overlook them in favour of muscle meats or completely throw a curveball with vegan propaganda. Eating the most nutrient-dense prized asset on an animal required no pHd; it came from using the common sense of respecting the whole animal and observing organ to muscle or bone or collagen ratio. There are only 2 kidneys and 2 eyes, 1 heart, a tongue, and a liver compared to multiple muscle meats. Only 100+ years ago, there were no "cheap" chickens or feedlot beef - every farm-raised animal had blood, sweat, and tears gone into its end product. So, completely utilising it was essential but respectful to the people's hard work and the animals.

The original godfather of nutrition is Weston A Price, not a glammed-up nutritionist on BBC News. Weston A Price took off on a mission worldwide to study different populations' diets and discover their secrets. Weston A Price found a secret that gets lost and missed in our modern nutritional information world and evidence-based narrative. All cultures respect the whole animal with a nose-to-tail approach, using local and seasonal produce like plants to complement it further.

Here are ten compelling benefits of incorporating organ meats into your diet that Weston A. Price likely uncovered, and the reasons why I created Oath Foods Co, which sneaks organ meats into your favourite meat items like sausages, burgers and ground meat.

Let's dive in. (7-minute read)

1. Unmatched Nutrient Density

Organ meats, particularly liver, heart, tongue, and kidney, offer significant health benefits as they are among the most nutrient-dense foods. They contain vitamin A, B12, iron, zinc, copper, and CoQ10, surpassing muscle meat in essential micronutrients.

In contrast, diets focused solely on muscle meat may lead to deficiencies in these vital nutrients, potentially contributing to fatigue, impaired immune function, and poor cognitive health. While you might look swell and inflated on the outside like a typical gym bro, your insides are starved of nutrients.

For example, beef liver provides more B12 and vitamin A than typical food. It supports energy production and immune function while counteracting the nutrient gaps in a muscle-meat-only diet.

2. Supports Energy & Metabolism

Rich in the nutrients that power your mitochondria in the Krebs cycle and electron chain transport with B vitamins (B12, riboflavin, folate, niacin, and thiamine), organ meats play a crucial role in cellular energy production. These nutrients aid mitochondrial function, helping the body convert food into energy efficiently. Our metabolism is more complex than calories - we must alter molecules by adding and removing certain hydrogens or carbons and ensuring deuterium inside or toxins.

A healthy metabolism requires nutrient density in the gut, brain, thyroid, and heart, all needing a lot of resources with micronutrients and minerals thrown in. Without enough potential to produce endogenous carnitine, our heart and liver might struggle to metabolize fats, leading to NAFLD, T2D, or cardiovascular events.

A nose-to-tail diet abundantly contains all these nutrients. It makes zero sense, but if your goal is optimal health, better energy, and a thriving metabolism, eating nose-to-tail with organs is key.

3. Boosts Immune Function

The liver and thymus are particularly beneficial for immune support. Vitamin A, zinc, and peptides like tuftsin in these organs modulate immunity, support white blood cell function, and help the body defend against infections. These nutrients provide vital benefits, enhancing the body's adaptive immune response, reducing inflammation, and promoting faster recovery from illness.

Copper, zinc, selenium, and NAC are essential for an adaptive and functional immune system. Copper is abundant in the liver, and the tongue has the second-highest zinc. As the gatekeeper of our immune system, the thymus supports the argument of eating like for like.

4. Improves Brain & Mood Health

The brain relies on specific nutrients to function optimally, many of which are found in organ meats. Choline, found in high amounts in the liver and brain (if you dare), is particularly important for developing and maintaining healthy neuronal membranes, enhancing focus and learning ability with the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

High choline, DHA, and B12 levels support neurotransmitter production, cognitive performance, and mood regulation. The benefits of these nutrients include reducing brain fog, enhancing memory, and lowering the risk of depression. The building blocks of all hormones and neurotransmitters are protein-based, such as tyrosine, tryptophan, or glutamine. Organ meats provide amino acids alongside their impressive micronutrients.

5. Strengthens Skin, Hair, & Nails

Collagen-rich organs like the heart, kidney, and tendons provide glycine and proline, crucial for maintaining healthy skin, hair, and nails. These amino acids also aid in wound healing, reduce joint pain, and promote overall skin hydration, making them essential for maintaining youthful, resilient skin. The benefits of glycine include supporting collagen production, which improves skin elasticity, reduces wrinkles, and strengthens connective tissues. Surprisingly, when you consume ground/minced meat, the glycine content is higher as the meat used is typically not prime steak but off-cuts, which usually have more fascia.

6. Enhances Detoxification

Consuming a more animal-based nose-to-tail diet with liver provides the cofactors to synthesise glutathione and recycle it with selenium and vitamin B2. On top of glutathione, detoxification pathways such as methylation are essential to detox toxic compounds, which aid in neutralising heavy metals and environmental toxins that accumulate in the body. Methylation requires a complex array of B vitamins like B12, B6, and B9 to work, along with choline and zinc. All the nutrients in organ meats are not packaged and marketed as a detox supplement. Still, they provide everything you need to support phase 1 and phase 2 liver detox pathways. Phase 3 - draining this with bile acids (choline, glycine, and taurine), which help the body eliminate harmful toxins and reduce oxidative stress.

7. Supports Fertility & Hormonal Balance

Organ meats are loaded with vitamin A, zinc, and saturated fat, which provide key building blocks for reproductive health. These nutrients also regulate menstrual cycles, improve sperm quality, and support adrenal function, which is vital for stress management and hormonal stability. Stearic acid, a saturated fat, has been shown to enhance menstruation irregularities in women and testosterone activity in men.

These nutrients are essential for hormone production, aiding in the synthesis of testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. These nutrients in organ meats regulate fertility, libido, and overall hormonal balance, contributing to optimal health from the inside out.

8. Strengthens the Heart & Blood Vessels

Heart meat is an exceptional source of CoQ10, an antioxidant crucial for cardiovascular health. CoQ10 has been shown to improve heart muscle efficiency by improving ATP/energy production, reducing inflammation, and enhancing overall endurance, making it particularly beneficial for athletes and those with cardiovascular conditions. If you take a statin, you will need a good supply of heart in your diet.

Heart meat is a rich source of carnitine, creatine, and vitamins B2 and B12, which are essential to heart work. Overall, organ meats feature a dense source of taurine, which has been shown to help support blood pressure and heart function, which is lacking in vegan or plant-based diets.

9. Nose-to-Tail Eating is Sustainable and Respectful to the animal

Eating organ meats aligns with traditional and sustainable eating practices, especially when choosing locally sourced meat. By using the most nutrient-dense parts of the animal, we support ethical farming and reduce the environmental impact of food production, making it a responsible choice for personal and planetary health. This has a short-term effect on transportation and long-term knock-on effects on the soil, adding back to carbon sequestration and the butterfly effect it creates in the ecosystem.

By consuming the whole animal, we reduce food waste and honour traditional nutrition principles. Organ meats are also one of the most cost-effective sources of high-quality nutrients, making them a budget-friendly addition to any diet.

10. Bioavailibility & Cost Effective

Unlike synthetic supplements, organ meats provide nutrients in their most bioavailable form. Our body recognises this and has evolved to use it for hundreds of years. This means that essential vitamins and minerals, such as heme iron in the liver, are more readily absorbed and utilised by the body, reducing the risk of deficiencies and improving overall metabolic efficiency. In case you didn't know, a Nobel Prize was awarded to 3 scientists who cured autoimmunity with liver consumption in the 1920s. Pretty astonishing, and surprisingly, no other food on this planet holds that level of accomplishment.

The body absorbs and utilises these vitamins and minerals more efficiently than those found in plant-based sources or synthetic alternatives, ensuring optimal nourishment with every meal. Not only is the bioavailability superior, but the consumption of organ meats is a no-brainer compared to organ supplementation or multivitamin and mineral supplementation, which is expensive and still requires you to consume food.

Conclusion

Modern diets have strayed far from the wisdom of traditional eating, yet the key to thriving has always been right in front of us, hidden in plain sight. The benefits of organ meats are unparalleled, as they are nature’s original multivitamin, offering a wealth of bioavailable nutrients that no synthetic supplement can match. They power the body, sharpen the mind, and honour the whole animal, bridging the gap between ancestral wisdom and modern nutrition. By embracing nose-to-tail eating, we reconnect with food in its most complete form that fuels vitality, resilience, and sustainability for generations to come.

If you want to experience the organs and all the health benefits shared above but might be on the fence or have no high-quality sources nearby… Then try Oath Foods Co. - a company I created that provides the most nutrient-dense real food.