35 Paleo Offal Recipes

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{Note from Jessica: Today’s post is shared by my lovely friend, Marjorie Saveski, author of the This is So Good website. Marjorie is a blogger and a home cook with a passion for real food, health, and fitness. She hopes to share what she has learned through her real life experience and research with her readers. Stop by her site, This is So Good, to find more delicious recipes and helpful health information.}

After transitioning to a Paleo diet in 2009, I found that I had so much to learn about real food.

I had always thought of myself as a healthy eater – low-fat and whole grain, lean meats and lots of fruits and vegetables.

The first hurdle I had to get over was fat-phobia. Once I came to terms with healthy fats, I started to dig deeper into what it meant to eat a real, whole foods diet.

I have great respect for the animals that feed me, so the idea of not letting anything go to waste intrigued me. However, by 2009 the only thing I had ever eaten that was not traditional muscle meat was beef tongue. And I had been tricked into it by my parents! As a huge fan of corned beef, they told me it was “special” corned beef. I ate it and I loved it! It was later that night that they revealed the secret. Needless to say, as a pre-teen I was mortified and thus ended my ventures into offal until almost 20 years later.

Shortly after deciding to incorporate offal into my diet, my husband and I were on vacation. We were treating ourselves to a fancy meal and saw sweetbreads (thymus gland and pancreas) on the menu. Time to take the plunge!

They were so good – neither one of us could believe that we had been missing out on this delicacy for so long. After returning home, I spoke with my farmer and ordered up some liver, tongue, and heart.

Traditional cultures will tell you that eating the organ of a healthy animal can help to heal that same organ in the person consuming it. Dr. Weston A. Price discusses these practices in much of his research.

Organ meats are full of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that are not as prevalent in other cuts. Muscle meats are rich in methionine, which needs to be balanced with adequate glycine and choline for it to be properly used by the body. Without a diet including bones, connective tissue, and offal such as liver, we rarely get enough of these nutrients. For a more thorough explanation, please see this article.

Hopefully, I’ve talked you into giving offal a try! Let’s get to some recipes and find some inspiration!