Third-Party Beef Organ Supplement Tests: Real Value or Hype?

Beef organ supplement companies love advertising how they are third-party tested, and AI tells people to look for third-party tested supplements. Is third-party testing the best way to evaluate the quality of a beef organ supplement, or is it allowing companies to cover up serious problems and a complete lack of transparency? 

What Are Third-Party Tested Beef Organ Supplements?

Third-party testing is conducted by sending a bottle of a beef organ supplement to a lab not affiliated with the company selling the product. It is supposed to provide an unbiased look at the product. This can be done by the company itself or by outside organizations. There are multiple types of third-party testing, each with its own upsides and downsides.

The Problems with Third-Party Testing Of Beef Organ Supplements

While third-party testing of beef organ supplements has become the go-to marketing for many companies, they never seem to reveal the problems with it.

• Problem one - No standards

  • There is no established framework for methodology, standards, and testing. Companies can use whatever methods they want for third-party testing, even if those methods are incorrect. Even if the wrong methods are used, they can still advertise as being third-party tested. Using the wrong testing methods can lead people to believe a product is clean and safe, even though it may contain many contaminants or adulterants that would not show up because the wrong methods were used.

• Problem two - Incomplete testing

  • Companies will send a product for third-party testing and only test for one thing because it’s cheap. Then, they can say it was third-party tested. For example, a company can send a beef organ blend to a third-party lab, have them test for vitamin A content, and then label it third-party tested, which, while technically accurate, clearly does not mean much. There is no regulation on the term "third-party testing" or on what must be tested to declare something third-party tested.

• Problem three - Overdilution

  • Third-party testing often misses overdilution. This is the practice of cutting a raw material, such as beef liver, with a filler, such as maltodextrin. This maltodextrin would not be shown on the ingredients label, because it is an adulterant.  It's a cheap and easy way to cheat common adulteration testing. Then, because the company sends the sample to the third-party lab, the lab could be instructed to test only certain things, and maltodextrin would never be tested for. The company could still label the products as third-party tested even though they are adulterated.

• Problem four - Spent materials

  • What are spent materials? Spent materials are ingredients that had compounds or nutrients taken out of them. For example, if you extracted pancreatic enzymes from beef pancreas and sold them as a separate supplement. The remaining raw material would still technically be pancreas powder, but it would be missing crucial compounds. A company could sell the spent pancreas as a beef pancreas supplement, but it would not have the same benefits. Third-party testing for heavy metals and pesticides would not show that it was a spent material. This essentially useless product could then be advertised as third-party tested, and people would think it was a high-quality product even though it clearly would not be.

• Problem five - Dry labbing

  •  This is where a company pays a "lab" to say they tested the products, and the lab gives the company the exact results they want, even though the product was never tested. This is a widespread practice that most people have no idea exists. There are lots of supplements being advertised as third-party tested that were never tested.

• Problem six - Test result swapping

  • Test result swapping is a growing but relatively unknown practice. This is where companies take a third-party test result for a similar product from another company and replace the original company's name and product name with their own. Sometimes companies will use their own test results on one batch and then change the batch number, while leaving all the other information the same.

• Problem seven - False advertising

  • A lot of companies use third-party-tested seals, symbols, and marketing on their advertising, listings, and websites, but never conduct the third-party testing. They know that most people will see the symbol and believe it, without ever looking into it.

• Problem eight - Fake results

  • Another big problem is the creation of fake test results, which is very easy to do with AI and graphic design software. Companies are creating fake third-party test results and using them to show their products have undergone third-party testing.

Unfortunately, this is not even close to a complete list of problems with third-party testing of beef organ supplements. Until a firm, comprehensive regulatory standard is established and enforced, third-party testing will never be the quality-control marker that companies and AI chatbots claim it to be.

Third-Party Beef Organ Supplement Testing Scare Tactics

While it's obviously a good idea not to consume lots of heavy metals, there are several "independent organizations" that claim to look out for people's health and publish test results in ways designed to scare people and get lots of clicks, rather than provide useful information. These companies make their money off of publicity, so they don't care about actually helping people. Often, these organizations sell a seal or certification, and if a company buys their seal or pays for their program, they won’t reveal negative information about them.

One very popular organization focuses on heavy metals in foods and supplements and lists lead and other heavy metal levels in parts per billion (ppb). They base their standards on a proposed bill introduced in one state legislature that never became law and is not based on scientific research.

They use this made-up standard and a ppb measurement to drum up lots of publicity and scare people, not to educate.

For example, this organization tested a gelatin powder and found it contained 14 ppb of lead. They made this seem like a very high amount, and people should not use this product because it is dangerous. However, this is completely untrue. At 14 ppb, each serving of that gelatin contained about .154 mcg of lead, an extremely tiny amount. For context, a 1/2 cup of carrots contains between .3 mcg and .6 mcg of lead, far higher than the gelatin powder did that was supposedly dangerous. If this organization wanted to help people, it would provide the actual amount of lead present, not numbers in ppb, and how it compares to the amount of lead in common foods. However, then they wouldn't get the clicks and money, because people would see that what they were doing was complete nonsense. Nearly all foods contain some trace amounts of heavy metals; it does not mean the amounts are necessarily dangerous. Don't fall for clickbait marketing; look for real data and information.

The other issue with these scare-tactic-based organizations is that they make it seem as though a product that meets their arbitrary standards is clean and pure. There are a lot of other things that can be problems in supplements, not just heavy metals. Just looking at one measurement is a mistake and gives a false sense of security. You can have a supplement that is low in heavy metals, but contains adulterated ingredients. It's important to look at the whole picture. Saying a product is pure because it passes one measurement is a terrible idea. Heavy metals are just one small part of what to look for to determine whether a beef organ supplement is high quality. Basing your purchase solely on heavy metal levels is a terrible idea.

What Are Better Measures Of Quality Than Third-Party Testing In Beef Organ Supplements?

As you can see, there are a ton of problems with third-party testing. There are many better things to look for when choosing a beef organ supplement to provide a better gauge of quality and safety.

The first is to know the entire operation from start to finish. Without a transparent view of the pasture-to-bottle process, you cannot possibly know whether a product is good. That’s why transparency is the best way to assess a product's quality. Unfortunately, with nearly all beef organ supplement companies, you have zero transparency. Let’s explore what we mean by that.

It's a dirty secret in the beef organ supplement industry that almost no companies make their own supplements or raw materials, and they never tell you who does. While a company may have its name and branding all over the package, for nearly every beef organ supplement company and all those beef liver pills you see advertised, that’s all they have to do with the process. They don’t source the organs directly from the farms, and they don’t dry, mill, or bottle them. They rely on a web of middlemen and contract manufacturers, and they don’t reveal any of them. Without this knowledge, there's no way to research the manufacturer to see whether they have many violations, ethical issues, or warning letters from regulatory agencies. How can you really know a product is good if you don’t have any information about who makes it?

Rather than put your trust in companies that hide who makes their products, look for those that produce them from start to finish (pasture-to-bottle) in their own TGA-certified facilities. TGA certification is among the strictest in the world, with far higher standards than US GMP regulations. Even better is when their manufacturing facility is not just TGA-certified, but was built from the ground up for the unique needs of beef organ supplements, not a generic factory that makes lots of things.

Look for family-owned companies. When massive corporations or private equity get involved, the quality never matches that of when the founders who care passionately about the products are the owners. Can you think of one company that produced better products after being acquired by a private equity firm?

While many companies provide generic information, such as country of origin, this type of data provides next to nothing for evaluating product quality. Saying that something comes from Australia, the US, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, etc, doesn’t tell you anything about the farms or region the organs came from. There are good and bad farms in every country, as well as clean and polluted areas. You wouldn’t want organs from a farm with poor practices where the cows are grazing near heavily sprayed areas or an oil refinery, would you? No, of course not, but if you only know the country of origin, you don’t know where in that country the organs came from. Knowing the exact area the cattle are grazing is what you need to know, not the country of origin. This is a very important piece of the quality control puzzle.

What the cattle eat and how they roam are big pieces of the quality puzzle. Many beef organ supplements claim to be grass-fed and finished, but what they are doing is anything but what you would imagine grass-fed means. A whole bunch of these cattle are being kept in feedlots and fed alfalfa pellets. While they can technically be labeled as grass-fed, it's nothing like cattle free-roaming over massive areas, eating a wide variety of native, unsprayed grasses. This is why you need to know far more than just whether a beef organ supplement is made from grass-fed and finished cattle.

How the organs in your beef organ supplement are dried makes a big difference. Improper drying can lead to loss of nutrients and damage to fragile compounds. That's why when companies say their beef organs are freeze-dried, it doesn't tell you much, because there are different ways to do it, and not all of them are good for beef organs. You want specifics, not generic terms. Freeze-drying should be done low and slow over forty-eighty hours. While quicker freeze-drying is better for profits, it's not good for the finished product.

Next up is the milling process. Traditional milling creates a lot of heat and friction, which can damage the fragile compounds. You want to choose beef organ supplements that are cryogenically milled. Cryogenic milling uses nitrogen and carbon dioxide to keep the ingredients cold during milling. Again, you want to know specifically how the product is milled.

When it comes to third-party testing, look for companies that use NATA-accredited labs. Many companies use labs with less-than-sterling standards and numerous issues (as detailed above in the problem section). NATA-accreditation ensures that labs are vetted and adhere to strict standards for laboratory testing.

These are just a few examples of what you should be looking for when evaluating the quality of a beef organ supplement. For the full list of what to look for, check out the beef organ supplement checklist.

NXGEN Wholefoods Third-Party Tested Beef Organ Supplements

NXGEN Wholefoods is setting the standard by which all beef organ supplements should be measured, and they check off every box on the checklist. They get the beef organs directly from a coop of regenerative family farmers in the Lake Eyre River Basin of Australia. The cows graze over vast areas, eating the native grasses. The areas are so large that helicopters are needed to monitor them. Each lot of organs is traceable back to the individual farms and cattle from which they come. Once they receive the organs, they use a specialized freeze-drying process, followed by cryogenic milling, to prevent heat-induced damage from traditional milling. After that, they encapsulate and bottle the products. All of it is done in-house at their state-of-the-art TGA-certified (the Australian version of GMP) facility, purpose-built for the unique requirements of beef organ supplement manufacturing. NATA-accredited laboratories carry out third-party testing for pathogens and contaminants.

For a more in-depth look at what makes NXGEN Wholefoods different from other beef organ supplement brands, check out this blog.

Lab-Tested Beef Organ Supplements

If you want a beef organ supplement company that makes its own products, offers full transparency, and is clean, pure, and without compromise, then NXGEN Wholefoods is the clear answer.