# liver article. Good or bad?



## Dubya (Jan 2, 2013)

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/does-the-liver-store-toxins/


----------



## laurarfl (Jan 2, 2013)

Well, I eat very little red meat except for the occasional home cooked hamburger. So it is all relatively gross to me lol. While I agree that the liver does not store toxins within its tissue such as those stored in fat, it may still contain a high amount of toxins. The studies didn't indicate if they were dry tissue samples or not. The liver contains a large amount of blood headed to the heart through the hepatic portal system. If that unfiltered blood has a high level of antibiotics and pesticides (also not indicated in that article), then the raw liver meal will as well. On the other hand, ground meats and cuts contain less blood.

Just my two cents. Good food for thought....Er....or not.... Lol


----------



## Orion (Jan 3, 2013)

I am a big fan of liver. I dont eat it enough. It said in the article "If you avoid liver because of toxins, you should probably avoid the rest of the animal, too." I feed my Tegus liver quite a bit in the summer since they usually are outside to poo, it makes their poop smell worse since its such a rich meat. It is very rich so my dogs only get it as treats in little bits also.


----------



## Dubya (Jan 3, 2013)

I give a little chicken liver mixed in with my tegu's food. The commercial chicken feed that chickens are raised on couldnt have any more contaminants than what commercial rat and mouse diet has in it. After all, the chicken is for human consumption. I think people sometimes worry too much. Too much iron, I hear can interfere with milk production in nursing female tegus. See my post on the thread titled "Milk".


----------



## laurarfl (Jan 4, 2013)

It is not the feed, it is the amount of antibiotics and hormones given to the critters. Also, liver is not the same as the rest of the meat because of the amount of the blood it contains.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 4, 2013)

> I give a little chicken liver mixed in with my tegu's food. The commercial chicken feed that chickens are raised on couldnt have any more contaminants than what commercial rat and mouse diet has in it.



Interesting statement this.....
Let me tell you a story. I currently work for a facility that breeds and cares for research animals for medical research. We have several different "classifications" of areas depending on the health status of the occupants, ranging from "conventional" where the researchers may be working with communicable diseases or where animals in the past were known to harbour certain diseases, to "full barrier" where the animals are guaranteed to be virus free and void of communicable diseases (which is where the majority of our breeding stock is kept). To keep the full barrier at that status, a lot of controls are in place: all caging and other necessary hard equipment is autoclaved, items that can't take the autoclaving because of the heat are typically sprayed with chemical decontaminant, articles that can't take the chemical decontamination are typically treated with peroxide gas. Clearly food becomes an issue because normal food cannot be autoclaved, chemically treated or nailed with peroxide gas (there are actually some autoclavable food, but these have some nutritional issues or some such). Anyhow, it should be clear we are very, very concerned about disease outbreak and we track EVERYTHING. Also, because of the nature of our stock and their value (I have some mice that are $100k each...), these guys are fed foods where quality is of utmost importance (ie. we are not talking just any old rodent chow here). Normally, if an animal gets sick, and others follow, because of our SOPs and tracking of all details, we can tell where it came from. Over the years, we have witnessed outbreaks of numerous diseases such as parvovirus that defied any regular pattern of transmission, we couldn't figure out any other vector except one - food. Switching to irradiated food pretty much eliminated these outbreaks. At first, irradiated food usage was restricted to the barrier facilities to control disease outbreak due to the costs involved (conventional status costs researchers far less per animal than full barrier). However, due to the success of using irradiated food, and the incurred costs of treating outbreaks in the other facility areas, we have recently decided to switch to irradiated diets for all animals in all areas. You may want to rethink about how safe commercial rodent feed is for your rodents and how that may get passed on to your tegus.

Liver can certainly be a healthy component of your tegus' diet. But just as fish is considered to be a healthy component of our diet, it is recommended for it to be restricted because of possible contamination. Contamination in liver can be (and likely is) a low concern, but the vitamin A content is a very real concern. Constant feeding of liver has a high probability of leading to vitamin A toxicity. I have no idea what would be a safe level to consider, but giving liver in the amounts as suggested by diets promoted by Bobby Hill I would say are dangerous. Just as a cautionary note - there are numerous cases in the US alone where captive colonies of large frogs have fallen ill/died out due to what is believed to be hypervitaminosis A (ie. vitamin A toxicity), induced by nothing more than a high whole rodent diet. Now, amphibians and reptiles are quite different and have different nutrient requirements, clearly snakes kept on mouse only diets still do fine, so I'm not saying rodents are dangerous for your tegu. However, rodents are (with respect to amphibians) a vitamin A rich food, and their constant use has been implicated with hypervitaminosis A. The same thing is likely to happen feeding tegus a constant diet with a high liver component.


----------



## Dubya (Jan 5, 2013)

I agree that the level of liver Bobby Hill recommended is way too high. I give much less than that. I was also worried about the vitamin A problems. I also am aware (thank you, laurafl) of the liver containing unprocessed blood. I am just going to have to bite the bullet and feed him those $100k mice. I'll take 10, please. As for the chicken liver, it is a little less than 1/8 of the basic mix I give my tegu and probably around 1/10 or less of his total food intake.
I heard that Ben's Kosher Deli is actually run by Nazis and is attempting to eradicate the Jewish population with chopped chicken liver. Has anyone else heard this? I thought that John Wayne killed the last Nazi.


So rodents are also too high in vitamin A? I will eat less of them and more hot dogs.


----------



## Dubya (Jan 5, 2013)

One more thing. Doesn't whole prey contain unprocessed blood too?


----------

