The most nutrient-dense food on the planet for strong immunity and resilience!

Did you know that livers from pastured chickens (the key ingredient in chicken liver  pate) are the most nutrient dense food on the planet bar none? Gram for gram pastured livers are packed with more micronutrients than any other food! Precisely why they were the most highly prized part of the animal for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. 

Did you know that nutrients are precisely what our body runs on and the more nutrients we have,  the more the structure, functions and systems of the body can work optimally? This includes our immune system! 

Livers are packed with vitamins A, D, E and K2 and these vitamins are key for building strong immunity and resilience. Vitamin A is important not just for strong immunity but also for glowing skin and is known as “the concertmaster of foetal development” because it is responsible for giving babies a beautiful broad face, high cheekbones and wide dental arch. A broad face and wide dental arch are not simply aesthetic – they also bring numerous functional benefits especially in terms of optimal breathing, jaw development, and teeth formation and placement. In addition, livers are the highest food source of iron, B group vitamins (including folate!) and other trace minerals. No wonder it was one of the potent fertility foods to be eaten by both men and women in traditional societies who wanted to have a baby. 

While many turn their noses up at eating livers, the French nailed it with a creamy spread or dip called pate which is a very convenient and palatable way of consuming livers (and for some the only way of consuming livers). We have a truly wonderful ongoing supply of our organic artisan sage & thyme chicken liver pate at Broth Bar & Larder and via our online store for delivery to all of Sydney, Wollongong and most of NSW.

If you’d like to learn how to make your own pate (it’s very simple!) and other organ meat dishes (both in sneaky form, and presented loud and proud!) check out my online organ meat workshop.

Whether you buy it or make it, I recommend you consume livers at least once a week (and more so if you’re pregnant, want to fall pregnant, breastfeeding, anaemic or have low immunity). I love pate on cucumber rounds, apple rounds, with veggie sticks, or smeared on quality sourdough or sprouted bread.

Like all food, not all liver or pate is created equal so ensure you are choosing livers and pate from pastured poultry and preferably certified organic.

And in case you’re wondering, no the liver is not a storage house for toxins - it is a storage house for nutrients. In a well functioning body, toxins pass through the liver and are eliminated through normal elimination means (or are stored in fatty or nervous tissues) as opposed to being stored in the liver. Another myth that is often bandied around in conventional dietetic circles is that livers can cause vitamin A toxicity. Vitamin A toxicity can only occur un the absence of vitamin D. In a whole food form these micronutrients are perfectly synergistically balanced.

Learn more myth busting and nutritional theory (along with loads of recipes) in my online organ meat workshop!

Our convenient modern lifestyle now not so convenient

By now I hope you all fully appreciate that diet and other lifestyle factors are the driving force behind not only the epidemic of chronic illness and degenerative disease but also your resilience against viruses and other acute illnesses. 

When your lifestyle factors (what you eat, drink, think, breathe, and how much you move, get into nature and sleep etc) are incongruent with our genes / biology, the result of the mismatch will be a lowering of the immune system, and hence greater susceptibility to viruses, illness and disease. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. As I’ve always argued, your health has less to do with your hard coded genes (genetics) and more to do with your lifestyle factors (epigenetics). 

Our modern environment—including ultra-processed and refined food, tap water, too much sedentary time, not enough sleep, excess exposure to artificial light and non native EMFs, use of toxic personal care products and household cleaning products, pharmaceuticals and chronic stress — all serve to lower our vibrational frequency, our health, our immunity and our resilience to pathogens and viruses that are around us all the time. 

We are now being exposed to pathogenic threats and a level of toxicity that the immune system of the average person simply struggles to deal with. Focusing on building strong immunity and strong physical and emotional resilience is taking on greater importance in our modern life. While others were investing in the stock market, I’ve been investing in my health for the last couple decades (not that they are mutually exclusive but the latter always seemed more of a priority because without one’s health, life isn’t so enjoyable). 

If you’ve invested in your health by focusing on a really solid traditional wholefoods diet and other lifestyle factors then trust that your strong immune system will afford you the resilience to fight off viruses and pathogens that we are constantly exposed to. Fear, worry and stress will serve to lower your immunity and undo your hard work. 

Our hunter gatherer ancestors lived their life in a way that constantly served to strengthen their resilience and immunity to optimise their survival. They knew that the survival of the tribe depended on the spectacular strength, speed and vibrant health of every member of the tribe. There were no a safety nets back then so making lifestyle choices that were incongruent to vibrant health would mean sudden death and ostracism from the tribe. 

Today we have the “luxury” of making lifestyle choices that undermine our health, making us increasingly susceptible to viruses, illness and disease. As a society, we have grown to simply condone these choices as “normal” driven largely by the clever marketing and deep pockets of big pharma and big business who push pills of convenience, foods of convenience and technologies of convenience on us. There is nothing convenient now about my children and I not being able to go to the beach, hug our friends or being robbed of basic freedoms that define us as humans. There is nothing convenient about a crashing economy, small businesses being shut down or the loss of one’s livelihood. Poor lifestyle choices are now a “luxury” we simply can’t afford if the human race has any chance of survival. 

We have the choice of co-creating a healthier human existence starting with making healthier lifestyle choices for our ourselves and for the planet. The food and the products you buy and the choices you make each and every day speak volumes about the type of world you want to live in. I’ve always advocated for change at the grass roots level. We individually and collectively are powerful beyond measure. But the question is: are you willing to make healthier changes? 

In the word’s of Neale Donald Walsh in Conversations With God:

“You can choose to end the destruction of your rain forests tomorrow.

You can choose to stop depleting the protective layer hovering over your planet.

You can choose to discontinue the ongoing onslaught of your earth’s ingenious ecosystem.

You can seek to halt the inexorable melting of snow -

But will you do it?”

NEW PRODUCT: 5 week fridge stable bone broth

I’m so pumped to announce our NEW PRODUCT – a 5 week fridge stable bone broth available in both chicken or beef and in 2 glass jar sizes: 500ml and 1L. 

To call it a new product isn’t technically correct as it’s the same product that you’ve known and loved for 10 years but a different bottling technique that keeps it fridge stable for 5 weeks!

Why have we done this? Convenience! Frozen broth (especially in glass jars) takes too long to defrost to consume at a moment’s notice. A fridge stable broth is incredibly convenient if you’ve gone away for several weeks to return home to broth awaiting in your fridge ready to heat and consume. 

This fridge stable broth is available at Broth Bar & Larder and via our online store and will start to roll it out to stockists. 

Why drink bone broth? 

This age-old elixir of health is renowned for it’s gut-healing, immune-building, skin-glowing, bone-strengthening and emotionally-calming effects. 

What makes our bone broth unique:

1. Our ingredients are certified organic

2. The water used is reverse osmosis and our salt is unrefined without anti-caking agents

3. The bones are from pastured chickens and 100% grass fed cows (all certified organic)

4. Our broth is made in small batches and slow simmered for approx. 15 hours

5. We do not store our broth in tetra-packs or plastic containers but instead use glass jars or food grade bio cardboard. Fridge stable broth is only available in glass jars. 

6. Our bone broth is FODMAP-free and hence the least allergenic on the market. 

7. We are a local company owned by a single mama who was the first to sell bone broth in Australia over a decade ago way way way before it became trendy. It was my way of healing myself and my family after numerous health crises when the conventional health care system repeatedly failed me. Out of desperation and love, a passion (and fire in my belly) turned into a business.

How to consume?

Drink bone broth straight up (or flavour bomb with  lemon juice, ginger, garlic or turmeric, tamari, Red Boat fish sauce), use it as a base for soups and stews, or to cook rice. 

If you care to make your own bone broth - awesome - please check out my online bone broth workshop.

Whether you buy it or make it- please just get quality bone broth into you and your kids every single day. A cup of bone broth a day keeps the nasties away!!

With love,
Soulla xx