How much chicken liver can I eat safely? PG.

[PreggieUBA2C]

I would love to eat it every day, but I remember reading about traditional northern peoples being careful about liver consumption from polar bears and seals while pg because of vitamin A overdose potential.

Does anyone know a non-food-guide source for this info and what the limit is if any?

[CookAMH]

I found this from weston price, and you can compare your serving size to what they recommend.

...unless you are an Arctic explorer, it is very difficult to develop vitamin A toxicity from liver. The putative toxic dose of 100,000 IU per day is contained in two-and-one-half 100-gram servings of duck liver or about three 100-gram servings of beef liver. From the work of Weston Price, we can assume that the amount in primitive diets was about 50,000 IU per day.

As for liver for pregnant women, a study carried out in Rome, Italy, found no congenital malformations among 120 infants exposed to more than 50,000 IU of vitamin A per day (Teratology, Jan 1999 59(1):1-2). A study from Switzerland looked at blood levels of vitamin A in pregnant women and found that a dose of 30,000 IU per day resulted in blood levels that had no association with birth defects (International Journal of Vitamin and Nutrition Research 1998 68(6):411-6). Textbooks on nutrition written before the Second World War recommended that pregnant women eat liver frequently, yet today pregnant women are told to avoid this extremely nutritious food. Don’t eat beef liver, cautions Organic Style magazine in a February 2005 article on diets for pregnant women, ". . . it has high levels of retinol, a vitamin-A derivative that can cause birth defects."

A good recommendation for liver is one 100-gram serving of beef, lamb, bison or duck liver (about 4 ounces) once or twice a week, providing about 50,000 IU vitamin A per serving. Chicken liver, which is lower in vitamin A, may be consumed more frequently. If you experience headaches or joint pains at this level, cut back until the symptoms go away.

from: http://www.westonaprice.org/The-Liver-Files.html

[newcastlemama]

When I was pregnant with dd I ate chicken liver pate a lot. In my 2nd and 3rd trimester I would make a batch and eat it over 4 to 5 days for lunch (and ds would eat a little too). It really helped me feel beter from nausea (maybe from the B vitamins?) and energy. I also took 1-2 tsp hvclo. So there were days I had about 50,000 iu a day from vitamin A. I craved butter and the pate like crazy so I felt my body was telling me to eat them!

For what it is worth, she was a big healthy baby and has a wide palate of perfectly spaced teeth at 2yo. (She is stillbreastfed though and I think that helps the palate a lot)

[crunchy_mama]

I just ate as much as I felt I needed.

[PreggieUBA2C]

Thanks for that, mamas! I do love liver and in the past, I have found that I have a 'not-one-bite-more' reflex that stops me when it's enough. I have that with salmon and tuna too. Up to that point, I am happily eating and have no idea that I'm about to feel that way. I will literally gag if I try to finish just that last bite once the reflex has kicked in. Perhaps that is itself my answer; I just wasn't sure, so thanks for the info!