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November 13, 2009

Lee Ward: 11/15/09 – Why do we eat liver?

Anonymous The Daily Independent Fri Nov 13, 2009, 10:41 AM EST

A friend recently told me his cousin ate a cow’s heart. It wasn’t a dare; he just considers organ meat healthy.

Don’t they know Weight Watchers declared organ meat unhealthy years ago?

Well, this cousin is a growing young man and apparently is more concerned with getting lots of protein than keeping his girlish figure.

Still, it made me think about food that shouldn’t be food. A cow’s heart is one of those things.

Just like liver. Chicken liver, calf liver, any kind of liver. My argument is this: Liver is an internal organ whose function is to filter impurities out of the bloodstream. Impurities. Out of the bloodstream. How can that be good for anyone?

I must admit, I have never eaten liver, so maybe I should not judge. However, there are things I know I will find unpleasant without trying them. Like bungee jumping. Or getting stabbed with a steak knife.

Of course, if I feel that way about heart and liver, you know I don’t eat potted meat, which includes heart and tripe, what ever that is.

Actually, I was curious, so I looked it up. Tripe is the edible lining of an animal’s stomach. Well, I wouldn’t use the term “edible,” but the dictionary did.

There are other less-offensive foods that I still find offensive enough to consider inedible:

‰ Spam. I have eaten Spam, but I don’t plan to again. Although I like ham, the meat product is actually spiced ham, hence the name. My dad loves to fry it to make a sandwich. My husband could eat it cold, but he also could eat sardines from the can.

Tripe also is defined as nonsensical talk, and eating it is about as nonsensical as it gets.

‰ Treet, which is Spam’s underpriviledged cousin.

‰ Hot Pockets. The mention of this frozen sandwich makes my stomach rumble in fear. Again, my husband loved the things and ate them most days for lunch or, even worse, as a late-night snack. I loved it when he complimented my cooking, but if I thought about how much he enjoyed Hot Pockets, I wondered if I should consider it a compliment.

‰ Lima beans. Not a bean fan, there are still forms of beans that I like: Refried beans, black bean soup, garbanzo beans on a salad. Lima beans seem in a category all their own. Waxy and flavorless, you can slip one by me in vegetable soup, but there is no way they are supposed to be piled on a plate as a side dish when you could be having green beans, Brussels sprouts, zucchini or asparagus. Yes, I said Brussels spouts.

I’m sure there are a lot of people who would defend Spam, Treet, potted meat, lima beans — maybe even liver — and every one of these foods I’ve berated is certainly considered food by this country’s standards. But you couldn’t prove it by me.

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.

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