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?”

My raw and real musings on motherhood and our limited edition Mother’s Day offering

Motherhood. 

The most rewarding yet difficult endeavour I have ever embarked upon. My children bring me endless wonderment coupled with exasperation (and which dose is greater depends on the day and depends on the kid in question). I have never experienced a love so pure, intense and unconditional as the love I have for my children. Yet motherhood is by far a vocation that is more painful than anything I have ever experienced. Just when I thought things were getting easier, they turned into a tween and a teen which makes the toddler years look like a walk in the park. 

The shadows of guilt, shame and incompetence over my parenting often haunt me. And the more I talk to other mothers (no matter how zen or perfect they appear, or how many parenting books, courses or programs they have completed) the more I realise that I am not alone. So I’m here to tell you that no mother is perfect and that whatever you’re feeling I guarantee that we have all felt it. We are all doing our best to raise children in an increasingly challenging world and without the village and the natural environment that children have evolved to be raised in. And those mismatches in themselves bring a myriad of issues. 

While the impact mothers have on their children etches deep and can last generations (for better or for worse) the saving grace is that our children are incredibly forgiving and resilient, and each day is a new start with new intentions. 

The passing of my own mother to dementia last year has given me great cause to stop and ponder the fragility of life. When there is nothing left to say there’s always “I’m sorry, and I love you”. 

As mothers, we not only bring forth life, we feed, nurture, care, support, love and protect with all our hearts. Yes motherhood involves pain and suffering but it also involves wonder and joy. And let’s not forget that as we celebrate our special day in May. 

Last year my son asked me “Mum, why did you have children?” My response: “To grow as a person…. To love and to be loved in returned, to teach you what I know and to learn from you in return.” Indeed, my children are my greatest teachers, my shiny mirrors reflecting back everything I dislike in myself and exquisitely pressing my buttons in a way that only they know how to press.  They will keep pressing and pushing until I show up as the best possible version of myself – happy, confident, capable, fair, supportive, honest, accessible, with clear boundaries. If they don’t feel I’m stepping up in any one of these areas, they will poke and prod (“act out”) until I step up.  As my children grow and mature, I feel it’s an opportunity for me to grow and mature as a person. There are many lessons to embrace, as every mother knows. 

So I dedicate this newsletter to my mother, and to mothers everywhere, who have done and who are doing so much for their children. I see at Broth Bar, coming to my talks and doing my classes, driven by a desire to provide the best possible start to your childrens’ lives. It warms my heart to think that the next generation of children that we are raising will be more robust, resilient, taller, smarter and beautiful than our generation, due to our hard work. And for that we can pat ourselves on the back! 

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To celebrate, acknowledge and honour the mothers in our lives and the incredible role they play, we have crafted as a Mother’s Day special limited edition, our signature activated macadamia nuts smothered in our signature raw dark chocolate: organic choc coated maccas for mamas! Simply suburb! Who doesn’t love that winning combo!? I hope you enjoy them as much as we have enjoyed bringing them back for sale to you as a Mothers’ Day limited edition. Throw into a larger hamper, or simply gift as a stand alone special treat. These are sure to please the yummiest/tiredest/grumpiest/happiest of mummies – for we are all these things rolled into one plus more ;-) 

Sold exclusively at Broth Bar & Larder. To organise a courier to any area within metropolitan Sydney or Wollongong simply call Broth Bar & Larder on 0421 786 009. Limited quantities available, so get in quick to avoid disappointment. 

“Mothers have the power not only to rock the cradle but to rock the world”
 – Dr. Bernard Jensen