Fool proof chicken liver pate

Pâté has got to be one of the most nutrient dense and delicious things you can regularly enjoy. Personally I don’t make it or eat it if I can’t find organic, pasture raised for ethical reasons. The choice is yours but things to consider are…

Why organic when it comes to chicken? Three reasons

1. Free range is a loose term and can still mean heavy antibiotic use, cramped quarters and little time outside.
2. Most chickens are fed grains with genetically modified corn and soy in their mix. Bad for them, us and the planet.
3. Debeaking and caging is practiced in, scarily, the majority of chicken farming (egg farming rather than meat though). Organic pasture raised chooks, while sure, we do end up eating them, get to have a great life living on a farm and doing the do.

Seek out an ethical butcher and be sure to support humane agriculture. I go to GRUB in Sydney. This means you can put fears of  ‘liver toxins’ to bed too, although it tends to be fatty tissue that stores toxins, not the liver itself, even though it’s the ‘processing plant’ of our bodies.

But isn’t too much vitamin A bad for me?

A common fear is that too much vitamin A is bad. High levels of synthetic vitamin A has been shown to be harmful, which led us to start condemning foods such as liver. It’s super sad because women who were pregnant were recommended to eat liver several times a week only a couple of generations ago. Vitamin A is a catalyst vitamin that helps us metabolise minerals and absorb water soluble vitamins. Many traditional cultures prized liver as the ultimate infant, post natal and convalescent food.

A serving of chicken liver paté, 100g, provides about 16000IU of Vitamin A and is packed with healthy fats, Vitamin B12 (best natural source). It’s up at the 100,000IU daily intake – so basically eating the whole batch of pate each day, that vitamin A can become an issue, so tuck in and enjoy! Many women with reproductive issues find their situation improves once they introduce liver into their diets, so it’s worth bringing back if you’ve not had some in a while – perhaps those traditional cultures were onto something! Little experiments of the self are the best! Speak to your practitioner and do your research if you fancy making an informed choice on your vitamin A sources and amounts.

(technical information sourced from, Eat Fat, Lose Fat, Sally Fallon and Dr Mary Enig)

STORAGE

If you make four little bowls and cover with the jelly, you can store for 2 weeks in the fridge. Once you’ve tucked into a bowl, 4 days in the fridge is fine. You can also freeze some a defrost at a later stage, up to 6 months.

I hope you enjoy it. It’s simple and quick and saves your bacon when you need a quick, nourishing meal in a minute!

Feeding babies tip: Pop a tsp or two of this into the veggie or meat / veg puree combo that you’re making for your little one – Be sure you’ve tested them for dairy allergy of course and make with coconut oil or macadamia oil or just a good intense chicken stock if you need to avoid dairy. This stuff is nutritional gold for those little growing bodies.

Real Food. Happy Bodies.