Adrenal Glands

[miles]

What do the adrenal glands actually look like? Are they quite obvious, and attached directly to the kidney? Or do they just 'float' in the suet with no obvious connection to anything? Do they vary much in size?

[ys]

there were several thumbnail size glands around whitetail deer kidneys.  i think all or at least one of them would be adrenal.
they are so small that in my opinion it does not have much effect if any at all when consumed.  unless you are consuming a lot of them, that's a lot of kidneys we are talking about.

i would think that beef kidney would have bigger adrenals, but still you would have to scrape many kidneys to get meaningful amount.

[Neone]

Adrenals look kind of like a gland made of liver flesh.. Pinky-red. You will find them just up behind the kidney inside the suet.  Sometimes you can see them and sometimes they are encased in the kidney fat.  When you cut them open they will look like a regular gland, except pinky-red in color.

They have their own kind of 'zangy' taste (although i have had some that were tasteless, probably frozen first or something?).

Do not take Ys' advice on eating a lot of adrenal.. You will probably not want to do that.
I am usually eating adrenals from large animals like moose and bison.  My wife and I have both found that it is quite easy to 'overdose' on adrenal.  About 1/4 of one adrenal is about what you want to take.. if you bump that up to something your body doesnt like you are going to feel it in your stomach. You wont be sure weather you're going to shit or throw up (you will probably do both).
 Just two days ago we did it again. I spotted an adrenal left in the bison suet we got. My wife figured the adrenal didnt look all that big.. it was kinda flat looking compared to usual so she ate the whole thing, probably about the tip of my thumb kinda size.  My wife says its like a bad trip.. haha.
she didnt want any more after that so I ate 1/3 of the other one and was fine.. The next day I ate the other 2/3 forgetting there was an adrenal in it and felt pretty rotten for about 2hrs but I kept it down.

My wife noticed a similar 'bad trip' effect when she ate about half a moose brain in one sitting.

Too much hormones in these things?

[miles]

I don't know what a 'regular gland' looks like because I've never seen anything identified as a gland. However by that description I think I may've eaten one before from some suet. Are they connected to anything by blood vessels or whatever? Could you please take some pictures of glands(of any/varying types) for me so I know what they look like? It'd be much appreciated. How close are the adrenal glands to the kidneys? If I got 2 whole lamb's kidneys from the butcher, which had all the suet and the two kidneys were even still connected to each other, would they definitely have had the adrenal glands?

The only pictures I can find on the internet are diagrams like the following, and I've never seen anything like this on a kidney..

Also Neone, have you seen the gooey sacks in fat? I've seen them in leg fat, shoulder dat, kidney fat... They contain some 'liquidy' gooey stuff... It's always like an off whitish yellow sort of colour.

The butcher told me he gets in sweetbreads, and pointed to around behind his jaw, but said he doesn't get them in often and that the animals only have them in spring/summer or something..

[Neone]

Yeah, i would say that a cross-section of a gland looks pretty much like in that picture, except its going to have more 'texture'. They're kind of like little organs... They're probably what you're describing as 'guey sacks in fat?' unless you're talking about the really little balls that are kinda liquidy i dont know what they are.  My vet said to find them(adrenals) follow the blood vessels back up from the kidneys.. I always dismembered my animals into smaller parts so i never kept anything together.. I would just go through the suet later looking for them.  I did have one that I could not find the adrenals on.. they are a little tricky to find.  I never found a thyroid or any kind of gland looking thing along the throat of anything either.

if they're taking out the whole kidneys and suet and all i would say that you would 'probably' get them.

Sweetbreads are the thymus or i dont know, some gland that shrinks as you age so you only get them from young lambs during the breeding season.. something like that. 
They were like oysters claims my wife... i was not a fan.

[ys]

Do not take Ys' advice on eating a lot of adrenal.

if you read my post carefully you'll see that i'm not advising anything.  i'm simply describing its size.

i ate all adrenals from both kidneys and have not noticed anything whatsoever.

miles, the diagram picture looks deceiving, maybe in humans it looks like that, but in animals it looks like oval shaped thumbnail type thing.

i also ate similar looking glands in the neck area (thyroid maybe??).  i also did not notice anything afterwards.

[Coatue]

Adrenals look kind of like a gland made of liver flesh.. Pinky-red. You will find them just up behind the kidney inside the suet.  Sometimes you can see them and sometimes they are encased in the kidney fat.  When you cut them open they will look like a regular gland, except pinky-red in color.

They have their own kind of 'zangy' taste (although i have had some that were tasteless, probably frozen first or something?).

Do not take Ys' advice on eating a lot of adrenal.. You will probably not want to do that.
I am usually eating adrenals from large animals like moose and bison.  My wife and I have both found that it is quite easy to 'overdose' on adrenal.  About 1/4 of one adrenal is about what you want to take.. if you bump that up to something your body doesnt like you are going to feel it in your stomach. You wont be sure weather you're going to shit or throw up (you will probably do both).
 Just two days ago we did it again. I spotted an adrenal left in the bison suet we got. My wife figured the adrenal didnt look all that big.. it was kinda flat looking compared to usual so she ate the whole thing, probably about the tip of my thumb kinda size.  My wife says its like a bad trip.. haha.
she didnt want any more after that so I ate 1/3 of the other one and was fine.. The next day I ate the other 2/3 forgetting there was an adrenal in it and felt pretty rotten for about 2hrs but I kept it down.

My wife noticed a similar 'bad trip' effect when she ate about half a moose brain in one sitting.

Too much hormones in these things?

Hmmm...This explains the thread I created yesterday called "Don't Mix". I should of read this post before I ate adrenal glands. I bought some bison adrenal glands and they come in 2. They're small so I thought I just eat both at once and began to eat some liver....big mistake. My stomach burned for 2 hours and I felt was going to puke.  So yes...it was definitely a bad trip haha.  Note to self, only eat 1/3 adrenal at a time!

[MaximilianKohler]

Could those of you who have definitely obtained adrenal glands post some pictures? Because I'm having trouble obtaining them too. My beef butcher would get them for me but he doesn't know what they look like.

[Fermenter Zym]

Could those of you who have definitely obtained adrenal glands post some pictures? Because I'm having trouble obtaining them too. My beef butcher would get them for me but he doesn't know what they look like.

This is from a bison: http://www.northstarbison.com/Bison-Adrenal.aspx