Is It Bad to Eat Chicken Liver When Pregnant?

D.,

Here's a link I found http://www.vivashealth.ie/member-info/Eating%20well%20whi...

http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/nutritioninpregn/a/aaabavoi...

http://www.amazingpregnancy.com/weekbyweek/foods.html

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pregnancy-nutrition/PR00109

C'mon, you are not eating it every day, right??? While it is true that the liver and other organs are the filters of the body, so they tend to be higher in contaminants that other parts, they are also higher in nutrients (and fat). As long as you are not eating it every day, I wouldn't worry about it. Follow that same guidelines as for tuna.

My OB/GYN said not to eat any kind of liver when I was pregnant. The liver is the organ which filters out all the toxins from the blood. Many toxins remain stored in the liver, even though they're out of the blood. For me that was no loss because I hate any kind of liver. If I had my choice between 9 months of not eating a favorite food or risking my unborn baby's health, I'd go without that food.

http://www.nourishingdays.com/?p=3056

So, does animal liver contain toxins due to it’s role as a filtering organ? The short answer is no. The long answer is it depends on the animal. The Weston A Price Foundation has this to say:

One of the roles of the liver is to neutralize toxins (such as drugs, chemical agents and poisons); but the liver does not store toxins. Poisonous compounds that the body cannot neutralize and eliminate are likely to lodge in the fatty tissues and the nervous system. The liver is not a storage organ for toxins but it is a storage organ for many important nutrients (vitamins A, D, E, K, B12 and folic acid, and minerals such as copper and iron). These nutrients provide the body with some of the tools it needs to get rid of toxins.

(source)
http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/509-liver-files...

It's bad to eat liver of anything. This is where all the toxins are filtered out so you all you are ingesting is pure toxin! This is true for any organ meat, actually.

It is especially true for non-organic meat, but even organic meat has toxins as a result of bioaccumulation. This occurs when one animal passes on the toxins in her body to it's offspring. Then the toxins that the offspring collects, combined with the toxins it's mother passed on is then passed on to her own offspring. That new offspring now has the toxins she collects through her lifetime and it is combined with her mother's toxins which were combined with her mother's mother's toxins... and so on... get it? So each generation has the toxins that were accumulated from all of the ancestors before it. So organic meat is not free of toxins... just has much less toxins than non-organic meat.

So, basically, you should just avoid organ meat at any time in your life.

A healthy suggestion to meat alternative is chia seeds, or Salba. http://www.salba.com

Look at the nutrition information page. It's amazing stuff.

I ate chicken liver while I was pregnant all 3 times. My three Daughters were born perfectly healthy. I was healthy throughout all pregnancies, too. Ultimately, it's your decision. If you like liver, I say go for it!

I never heard anything about the toxins but I did hear that the liver has too much vitamin A for a pregnant woman. I guess there are two kinds and liver has the kind that we should not have during pregnancy. There are plenty of other ways to get iron.

I would not eat any type of organs while pregnant. I can't say wheather you should eat them normally, but I would not feedc them to my baby.

Dear D.,
I agree with those mentioning it is bad to eat liver. Would you eat an oil filter? The liver is like the oil filter of the body. The Old Testament forbade eating any of the organ meats, and now we know why - they control processes in the body that are keeping the bad stuff out of our other tissues,etc. Also it's bad to eat blood, because the blood carries everything to the organs that will filter it to the rest of the body, and people might get the toxins along with the blood in the process if they eat it (the Kosher way of preparing meat is to drain all the blood out, incidently, so so it won't get into OUR body). Pretty simple, really. ALso - before a person develops cancer, it's the liver that goes first, from too much overload of toxins it can no longer fight, that begin 'leaking' out into the rest of the body. Why force your body to filter another person (or chicken's) liver out of YOUR body, too? The great health expert Adelle Davis, whom I read all her books years ago - used to recommend liver, and ate it herself every day. THen she died - of CANCER! Why? That was before they found out that the cows were being fed BST and other hormones that she was eating in their livers.
I will never eat liver now. Period!
Hope I haven't grossed you out!
Best,
R.

My doctor actually recommended it to me during my pregnancy beacuse I was a little low in iron. Enjoy!