RMPBS News
Please pass the organs
1/16/2025 | 2m 38sVideo has Closed Captions
Chef Sandra Ruiz Parrilla introduces families to offal, or organ meat, to help combat food waste.
Americans have long shied away from eating organ meat, but some experts hope that introducing consumers to offal could reduce food waste. At an offal tasting, Chef Sandra Ruiz Parrilla invites families to try beef cheek, heart and tongue.
RMPBS News is a local public television program presented by RMPBS
RMPBS News
Please pass the organs
1/16/2025 | 2m 38sVideo has Closed Captions
Americans have long shied away from eating organ meat, but some experts hope that introducing consumers to offal could reduce food waste. At an offal tasting, Chef Sandra Ruiz Parrilla invites families to try beef cheek, heart and tongue.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipToday is an offal tasting.
Offal, o-f-f-a-l, is the organ meats, the edible parts of the animal that are not your typical cuts of meat, like your filet mignon or your sirloin.
Hearts, beef tongue, and cheeks, sorry.
-Which is your favorite?
All of them.
But the beef cheek is really good, very tender.
Offal is actually the most nutrient-dense part of the animal.
And the United States is a little bit unusual in that we don't have an organ meat eating culture like every other country in the world.
So we're really excited to have this event here today that Sandra has prepared for everybody so that they can get to know a little bit more about why organ meats are nutrient-dense and fantastic and also a really culturally important food for a lot of people who live in the United States.
We have cheek barbacoa, tongue, steamed tongue, and then we have hearts in red chili.
Sometimes people think it's really gross, but it's not gross.
I mean, if you try it, and like I said, you have to know how to cook it also.
We marinate the meat first with different spices, salt, garlic.
Once you marinate it, you put it on the steamer.
So we did 180 temperature all night.
All night.
And then we put on the kettle for 3 hours.
And that's something that people don't realize either, that this meat has to cook for hours.
It gets very tender and very delicious.
So you just have to really have patience with this kind of meat.
-A certain topping?
-Everythings good.
- Everything?
I tried the cheek first, and the cheek was really nice.
It tastes like normal meat, right?
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
As a mom of a large family, I hate to see any kind of food waste.
I mean, we use everything that we can, you know?
I know they can be picky, but I think as long as you offer it, its amazing what kids will try as long as you keep having it available.
As beef demand rises, by product supply will also increase.
And when I say byproducts, I mean organ meats and I mean hides.
So it's going to end up in a landfill or need to be shipped, which also requires greenhouse gases, overseas if we are going to increase our consumption of beef.
So it's a sustainable choice to consume organ meats.
Offal is also part of our cuisine, showing that we have to respect the animal every part of the sacrifice that we do for the animals, and not wasting those parts are very beneficial to our health.
RMPBS News is a local public television program presented by RMPBS