The Importance of Eating “Nose to Tail”

People today are talking more and more about eating “nose to tail.” Eating nose to tail means using every part of an animal and arguably every part of a plant that can be used for food. Most people today are eating only animal skeletal muscle — the muscles of movement. No civilization in history has abandoned the rest of an animal’s organs as a food source. Heart, liver, kidney, stomach, thymus, and more used to be daily parts of the menu. Sausages were routinely made with organ meats alone. We have no idea how avoiding organ meats affects our health, but we know that organ meats, not to mention bone marrow, tendons, and bone broth, have different nutritional profiles than skeletal muscle. How has avoiding these foods impacted our health? We have no idea. When I consider the vast suffering caused by the premature degeneration of joints, ligaments, tendons, bones, and even our organs themselves, I can well imagine that abandoning the food sources that contain all the building blocks for these tissues might have something to do with it. Jogging on concrete and lifting heavy weights repeatedly may not be helping, but that’s a topic for another time. For now, integrating organ meats, bone broth, and bone marrow into your diet seems prudent. Choosing not to seems reckless.

)

Leland Stillman, MD

Written by

Unconventional medicine. Quantum biology. StillmanMD.com.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade