Arctic animal livers will kill you

[pioneer]

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/eat-polar-bear-liver.htm/printable

Arctic animals generally have much much higher levels of vitamin A in their livers than other animals. According to the article, Polar bears have over triple the vitamin A in their livers than humans do. People who ate the whole livers of seals and polar bears have died in the past. The deaths were caused by acute hypervitaminosis A, or an extreme excess of vitamin A. This proves that eating too much of a good thing can be bad. Truthfully, we rarely seem to need to eat liver, or other organs for that matter. In all of my reading, it seems to me that tribes and indigenous populations generally shared the organs and did not divide them. This way, no toxicity would result. Be careful with the organs you guys eat. Make sure you only eat organs in small quantities. Otherwise, toxicity can arise.

[TylerDurden]

Irrelevant info as none of us are eating raw livers from arctic animals, so we are quite safe.

[goodsamaritan]

Irrelevant info as none of us are eating raw livers from arctic animals, so we are quite safe.

there are russians and canadians and alaskans and scandinavians amongst us.
That's good to know.

[TylerDurden]

there are russians and canadians and alaskans and scandinavians amongst us.
That's good to know.

   I seriously doubt any of them eat such raw livers, and, anyway, Stefansson pointed out that the Inuit only got stomach-aches and the like from eating such raw arctic livers, no fatal poisoning occurring.

[pioneer]

I just dont get why everything in this forum has to be "relevant". This is the general discussion section after all. I was just putting this info in for anyone who cares.

[proteus]

thanks for the heads up.  i knew you could have too much vitamin A from overconsumption of cod liver oil but somehow didn't realize the same could be true for other kinds of liver.  liver has always been one of my favorite foods.

[Techydude]

I heard about this a long time ago before raw paleo. Scary.