Beef organ supplements (keyword) have exploded in popularity and for a good reason. Organs are some of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, but most people don’t eat them. With ever-increasing nutrient deficiencies in the general population, organ meats can be crucial in reversing them.
With that popularity came a whole bunch of companies just looking to make a quick buck and capitalize on a popular trend. Unfortunately, most of these companies don’t think much about ethics, quality control, manufacturing, or sourcing and just care about making a quick buck.
Many beneficial nutrients and compounds in organs are very fragile and need special processing to protect them from being damaged or destroyed. Many companies that have popped up selling organ supplements don’t have anything to do with the process, just slapping their name on a bottle made by a random white labeler. White labeling is when a large manufacturer makes the same product for many companies, just putting different labels on the bottle. This is how most private-label store products, such as pasta or vitamins, are made. This is not how you want your beef organ or other whole food supplements made.
Beef Organ Supplements
Beef organ supplements can be a fantastic way to add good nutrition to your diet, but only if they are made right.
What to look for in beef organ supplements
First up is ethics. The vast majority of beef organ supplements and collagen peptide powders are made from ingredients sourced from South America. Cattle ranching in South America is a leading cause of rainforest deforestation (about eighty percent), and slave labor is often used. In addition, Native peoples are often killed and pushed off their land, and often killed, to clear more space for cattle ranching. Avoid beef organ supplements and collagen powders from South America. Check out our blog to learn more about it. Due to the mixing of organs and parts from different farms and the lack of traceability, it is nearly impossible to guarantee that an organ or collagen supplement from South America is ethically produced. Plenty of companies, like JBS, who supply the raw materials, claim to produce ethical versions, but their actual actions are quite different from the marketing. One of the best things you can do for the environment and native peoples is to boycott all beef products, from meat at the grocery store to supplements, from South America.
Next up is animal welfare because how the animals are raised and treated matters greatly for the planet, the health and well-being of the animals, and your health.
They should be genuinely regeneratively raised, grass-fed, pastured, and free-range. Unfortunately, because of a lack of proper regulations, companies use these terms without actually following the spirit of what those things should mean.
Regenerative beef organ supplements
When most people think of grass-fed, they imagine cattle leisurely walking across huge open fields, munching various grasses and plants, and having a pretty relaxing time. In an ideal world, that would be how all grass-fed cattle are raised. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world.
In the US, all cattle start on grass and are either grass-finished or grain-finished in feed lots. As demand for grass-fed beef has increased, many companies have found a way to produce truly grass-finished beef by confining the cattle to feedlots and feeding them alfalfa pellets instead of grazing on fresh grass. While this may be allowable under the current rules and regulations, it very much defeats the spirit of grass-fed.
Another issue that arises is that a lot of grass-fed beef is produced in a very destructive way. It is poor practice to just let a whole bunch of cattle out in the same area repeatedly. This causes overgrazing, which can lead to a deterioration of the land and increased pollution from runoff.
Ideally, cattle should be regeneratively raised, using rotational grazing, in order to allow the land time to regrow. It creates grassland with deeper roots and soil with more nutrients because their manure adds so much to the soil. It helps to improve the environment by storing large amounts of carbon in the soil, improving the water table, reducing runoff, and improving the local water cycle. Real regenerative agriculture does not spray pesticides onto the grass, allowing the microbes and healthy soil to keep the grasses healthy. It also makes for healthier animals as they get sick far less often, meaning fewer antibiotics and fewer medications are needed. The animals also get to spend their time outside enjoying the fresh and sunshine, rather than being confined to feed lots. It also creates food with much higher levels of nutrients, which is better for us. It's a win-win overall.
Our friends at White Oak Pastures are a great example of how all farming should be done.
Of course, with the increasing demand for regeneratively raised meat and ingredients, there are many companies claiming to sell regenerative products that do not. This has become an enormous problem in New Zealand, especially.
Large suppliers in New Zealand are putting too many animals into too small of a space, which leads to overgrazing and lots of runoff into the water supply. Instead of changing to properly done regenerative and rotational grazing, they are spraying the pastures with lots of pesticides and importing tons of nitrates, which are spread on the fields, to try and speed up the growth of the grasses. This, however, is causing tons of run-off in their water supply, which is creating huge amounts of water pollution. This is not regenerative agriculture, but unfortunately, ingredients produced this way are being sold with claims of regenerative agriculture on the packaging. Real regenerative agriculture improves the water quality around. It is also where a huge amount of the raw materials that go into a lot of big brands of beef organ supplements come from. It is frustrating to see so many desiccated organ supplement brands with regenerative agriculture claims in their marketing and on their products that use these materials that are anything but regenerative. Real regenerative agriculture leaves the land and the environment better than before. It does not make things worse. It’s important to choose organ supplements made from truly regenerative farming.
It’s also important to look for beef organs from countries with strict government monitoring for diseases such as BSE (mad cow disease).
Beef Organ Supplements Manufacturing
The next important step in creating great beef organ supplements is the manufacturing of the raw materials. What happens to the fresh organs matters a great deal in ensuring you get the best product.
Most desiccated organ supplements are made with high-heat drying methods, such as spray drying, which can damage the fragile compounds and nutrients in them.
The best method for drying beef organ supplements is freeze-drying. However, not all freeze-drying methods are created equal. If the freeze-drying process is done too quickly, which is cheaper for companies, it can degrade the raw material. When freeze-drying beef organs, it’s important to use a slower, gentler freeze-drying method. Ideally, this process should take place over forty-eight hours.
After the organs are dried, they must be milled into a powder. Traditional milling creates a lot of heat and friction, which can damage the important bioactives in the organs. Cryo-milling, which is a cold process, is the method that should be used. This method is much more expensive, so most companies use traditional milling methods. Since most companies don’t make their own raw materials or organ supplements, they usually don’t even know what kind of milling is used.
Once the organs are milled into a powder, they should be put into a container and sold as is or encapsulated. A good organ supplement should contain no fillers, binders, or excipients. Filling capsules without them is more time-consuming and costly, but it creates a better finished product. We recommend choosing beef organ supplements in beef gelatin capsules rather than vegetable cellulose capsules because they protect the organs better from stomach acid and provide gelatin, which is great for gut health, hair, skin, nails, joints, etc. In addition, many vegetable cellulose capsules contain unwanted ingredients, which are often not listed on the label.
It’s best to choose beef organ supplements in capsule or powder form. Other formats, such as tablets and gummies, require lots of processing methods that can be damaging to important compounds and nutrients and add lots of unwanted additives to the product. Look for powders that are just the pure organs, without added sweeteners, flavorings, and fillers.
Beef organ supplement testing
Beef organ supplements should be tested at several points during the manufacturing process for various contaminants, including bacteria, fungi, heavy metals, pesticides, and more. Look for companies that also use third-party testing on the finished product of each batch.
It can be nearly impossible to know if companies do all of these things correctly unless they do all of it themselves, including getting the fresh organs directly from the farmers, then making the raw material and bottling the product. Look for companies that do all of these steps themselves. Unfortunately, most companies get raw materials from a middleman and have a contract manufacturer slap their name on the label. That is the exact opposite of what you want.
How to take beef organ supplements
Most beef organ capsules can be taken with or without a meal. Some like. beef pancreas should be taken with the first bite of a meal.
Beef organ powders can be mixed into cold food and beverages like smoothies or applesauce.
They are a very concentrated source of nutrition, so it is best to start slowly and gradually increase the dosage.
If you have questions about when or how to take your beef organ supplements, feel free to click the chat bubble on the bottom right, and we will be happy to help! It's always a real person, no chatbots.
The best beef organ supplements
It was not easy finding a company that met all of the criteria we were looking for. Many companies had great stories, especially some of the biggest, most well-advertised ones, but they did not make or produce any part of the product, having outsourced the whole process. We wanted a company that did everything themselves so we could verify every step involved in producing the product. We wanted beef organ supplements that had a farm-to-bottle approach. If farm-to-table is ideal for our food, we should strive to apply it to our supplements as well.
NXGEN Wholefoods Beef organ supplements
Thankfully, after a lot of time and research, we found a beef organ supplement company that’s doing everything right, NXGEN Wholefoods.
NXGEN Wholefoods provides organic, regeneratively farmed, grass fed, grass finished beef
organs and glands, sourced from Australian farms. They are the only company globally
with more than fifty years of meat industry experience and qualifications to harvest and
collect the perfect quality glands and organs. They have the most extensive range of beef organs and glands to choose from, and they are leaders in glandular therapy.
Their organs and glandulars are sourced from the ancient and untouched soils and
land of Lake Eyre in South Australia, where the ranches are as large as the state of Texas.
The cattle thrive on native grasses and roam freely for thousands of miles in an area
where no cropping occurs. There’s no glyphosate spraying or pesticide drift from
neighboring properties. Far too many companies get organs from cattle that graze on pastures that were heavily sprayed with pesticides. It’s bad for the environment, the cattle, the people spraying it, and your health. Proper management of pastures makes that completely unnecessary, but unfortunately, too many companies put profits above all else. The cattle are not given hormones or antibiotics. The farms they source organs from are the cleanest source of organs and glands, providing the benefits of unique, natural peptides, vitamins, and minerals. The farmers use the exact farming methods that you think of when you imagine regenerative farming, not the greenwashed fake versions that are all too common now. Check out the video below to learn more.
NXGEN Wholefoods is vertically integrated, meaning they have full control of all parts of
the sourcing and manufacture from farm to capsule. They buy restaurant-grade organs and
glands and inspect them firsthand; they own and operate the freeze-drying technology, using a slow forty-eight hour method. They use cryogenic milling, so all of their desiccated organs and glandulars are safe from the heat and friction that comes from traditional milling methods. Their products are non-defatted, which means they retain the fats, which contain important compounds not found elsewhere. Many companies defat their organs, which is a harsh process that removes a lot of important bioactives. Always buy beef organ supplements that are non-defatted, so you get the full range of benefits these nourishing foods have to offer.
The final process of encapsulation and packing is done in their state-of-the-art
factory in NSW, Australia. They manufacture small batches for freshness and each
capsule is equivalent to eating the raw organ and gland without the mess, but with the
convenience of knowing food safety and food quality is the best. All batches are third-party
and tested for purity.
They have two brands to select from: the NXGEN Wholefoods range, which provides single organs and glands in an easy-to-take capsule or powder with the strongest amount of peptides and nutrients of one specific organ or gland, as well as the Cow and Bull brand, which provides blends of organs and glands that work in synergy to support specific body systems. The Cow and Bull blends provide a cost-effective way to experience and enjoy the benefits of several organs and glands in one capsule.
We are so proud to partner with NXGEN Wholefoods, which is setting the standard for which all beef organ supplement companies should strive for.
Beef organ supplements questions and support
For more information on beef organs, check out our Nose-To-Tail Center, where you can learn all about the benefits of organ meats.
If you have questions about organ meats and beef organ supplements, please email us at info@rooted-nutrition.com, and we will be happy to help!