Is it really safe to eat animal offal?

In life, some people really enjoy eating animal offal. Is it really edible? Below, the editor will introduce some precautions for eating animal offal, as well as which offal should not be eaten frequently.

I. Precautions for Eating Animal Offal

1. The source of the ingredients is crucial

I've seen reports about fast-growing chickens. To make them grow quickly, farmers illegally administer hormones like dexamethasone and amantadine, allowing chicks to rapidly grow to 2.8 kg in just 45 days. The long-term and large-scale use of these drugs will inevitably leave residues in the chickens' bodies.

We all know that eating such chicken can be very harmful to the human body, let alone the chicken's offal—their metabolic organs. It's easy to imagine that more harmful substances will be left behind and accumulate in them during this process.

Therefore, when buying offal like chicken giblets, you must be especially careful to choose giblets from free-range, locally raised chickens. The product I used here is from the Feixi Old Hen of Laoxiang Chicken. During its free-range process, it eats grains, insects, and grass seeds, drinks spring water, and has a natural 180-day growth cycle, with no issues from illegal drugs being used to fatten it up.

Furthermore, at Laoxiang Chicken's farms, they use traditional Chinese medicine to prevent and treat diseases. They also strictly enforce a 30-day ban on drug administration before the chickens go to market, ensuring the excellent quality of all products.

2. There are specific methods for cleaning

Due to the special nature of animal offal, it must be cleaned thoroughly during processing. When washing chicken intestines, you can add some salt and knead them repeatedly to remove the surface mucus and odor.

For the chicken liver, rinse it under running water until no more blood water comes out, then slice it. Soaking it in clean water with Sichuan peppercorns and vinegar can effectively remove toxins.

There's also the gizzard. Because one side has many folds, you can add some cornstarch while cleaning and knead it to help clean the dirt from the folded parts.

3. Long-term high-temperature stewing

When cooking, it must be stewed at high temperature for a long time to ensure it's thoroughly cooked, which also kills any possible parasites, bacteria, and eggs at high temperatures, thus ensuring food safety.

4. Control the portion size

Offal is delicious, but you must pay special attention not to eat it in excess. The portion per person should not exceed 50 grams at a time; otherwise, it's easy to cause vitamin A and vitamin D poisoning. Moreover, its fat and cholesterol content are also relatively high, so overweight people and those with high blood lipids should be especially careful not to eat too much.

Suggestion: Try to eat animal offal like chicken giblets and beef offal infrequently. If you really like to eat it, choose chicken giblets. Relatively speaking, chicken giblets don't contain as much cholesterol as offal from livestock. In addition, from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, chicken giblets also aid digestion and strengthen the spleen and stomach. Occasional consumption can even be beneficial to the body.

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II. Animal Offal That Should Not Be Eaten Frequently

1. Poultry "tail"

The part on the upper end of a chicken, duck, or goose's tail where the tail feathers grow. Its scientific name is "cloaca," a place where lymphoid glands are concentrated. Because the macrophages in the lymphoid glands can engulf bacteria and viruses, even carcinogens, but cannot break them down, the poultry "tail" is a "warehouse" that harbors filth.

2. Livestock "three glands"

The thyroid, adrenal glands, and diseased lymph glands in animals like pigs, cattle, and sheep are three "physiologically harmful organs."

3. Rabbit "scent glands"

The white inguinal glands located under the skin on both sides of the external genitalia, the brown inguinal glands next to them, and the rectal glands located on both sides of the rectal wall have an extremely foul smell. If they are not removed when eating, the rabbit meat will be difficult to swallow.

4. Sheep "suspensory ligament"

Also known as "hoof pearls," it is generally round or串珠状 (串珠状:串珠状) and is a tissue that develops a disease in the sheep's hoof.

5. Fish "black membrane"

On both sides of a fish's abdominal cavity, there is a layer of black membrane. This is the most腥臭 (腥臭: foul-smelling) and earthy part, containing large amounts of lipids, lysozyme, and other substances.

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Is it really safe to eat animal offal?

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