You may remember that I was in charge of taking Catherine’s
placenta from the hospital and preparing the lovely organ for her. Well, a few
weeks ago, my job came to fruition, when she gave birth to the most precious
little thing, Elijah. He’s amazing, guys. We love him so much!
The nurses bagged up Catherine’s placenta and then it was
given to me to refrigerate & take home.
Once home, I put on my gloves, pulled out a fresh cutting
board, and pulled out that super food jewel to prepare
How do you prepare a placenta for consumption you might ask?
Great question! There are several ways in which to prepare it, but I’ll share
with you what I did, in order for Catherine to make smoothies with it. I recommend buying gloves, a new cutting board & knife
if you want, and clearing/scrubbing clean your kitchen sink. Once things are
set out and cleaned, it’s time to pull out the placenta. It’s gonna be bloody, so be prepared! Needed:
New, clean cutting board
sharp knife
gloves
placenta
clean, open work area
wash basin
freezer bags
Turn the placenta over and cut open a slit into the white
outer sack. Rinse all the blood out from the inside.
If you want to keep the umbilical chord as a memento, make sure you clean out all the blood thoroughly. Cut it off and lay it out to dry. It will dry out & become hard after a day or so. Make sure to lay it in the shape you desire. For example, you could arrange it in a heart before you lay it out to dry. A circle? A triangle? Anything! Get crazy. ;) (Sorry Eli! I didn't think about the shape thing until now! Just know, I'd totally have made yours into a Longhorn or something equally amazing. But alas, for the rest of your life, you will just have to have a 'snake' shaped dried umbilical chord. Snakes are cool, too.)
Next, use a sharp knife to remove the outer white skin &
veins from the “meat” in the middle. Be careful!
Once you've cut the white covering and veins out you can start pulling off or cut off bite size pieces of placenta from the whole. With each peace, make sure to pop any blood vessels and wash out thoroughly. You want the placenta to be pinkish in color, instead of the deeper purple/red.
Once you cleaned out all the blood and cut all the placenta into proper sizes, it's time to divide it out! Placenta keeps in the refrigerator for 3 days and should be consumed thawed, not frozen. I suggest dividing the placenta into 3 day servings and placing it in freezer safe bags. Each freezer bag could be taken out, and thawed, and consumed in 3 days worth of smoothies. I put 6 to 8 bite size pieces in each freezer bag, assuming Catherine would use 2-3 pieces of placenta a day. I got around 10 bags worth of placenta out of the one placenta. Mommas, freeze and enjoy in your favorite smoothies for postpartum benefits!
For some great placenta recipes or to find out why the heck you'd ever consume your own flesh, check out Catherine's (the bearer of the placenta above :) ) blog!
Also, read about her experience eating it! Did she like it?! You will see!
