Heart and Soil is a real company selling freeze-dried organ meat supplements, founded by Paul Saladino, a board-certified psychiatrist and functional medicine practitioner based in Austin, Texas. The brand has built a large following in the ancestral health space, but whether it’s worth your money depends on what you’re expecting from it and how you weigh the evidence behind organ meat supplementation in general.
Who’s Behind the Brand
Paul Saladino earned his MD from the University of Arizona in 2015 and completed his residency at the University of Washington in 2019. His board certification is in psychiatry, not nutrition or internal medicine, which is worth noting since the brand is built largely on his dietary philosophy. He’s also a certified functional medicine practitioner and the author of “The Carnivore Code,” which argues that animal-based eating is optimal for human health.
Saladino has a significant social media presence, and Heart and Soil’s marketing leans heavily on his personal brand. That’s not inherently a problem, but it means the company’s credibility is tied to one person’s dietary worldview rather than to independent clinical research on the specific products.
What the Products Actually Are
Heart and Soil sells capsules filled with freeze-dried organ meats from grass-fed, grass-finished cattle raised in New Zealand. The product line includes various blends targeting different health goals: beef liver capsules for general nutrition, combinations with heart and bone marrow for energy, and others featuring kidney, spleen, or pancreas.
Freeze-drying is a legitimate preservation method. It removes moisture at low temperatures, which keeps heat-sensitive vitamins and enzymes more intact than traditional high-heat desiccation. This is a real advantage over cheaper organ supplements that use heat processing, which can degrade nutrients like B vitamins and vitamin C. So the manufacturing approach is sound.
The core premise, that organ meats are nutrient-dense foods, is well-established nutritional science. Beef liver, for example, is one of the most concentrated natural sources of vitamin A, B12, folate, iron, and copper. Heart tissue is rich in CoQ10, a compound your cells use to produce energy. These aren’t controversial claims.
Where the Evidence Gets Thinner
The gap between “organ meats contain nutrients” and “these specific capsules will improve your energy, skin, or digestion” is where things get less certain. Heart and Soil has not published clinical trials on its products. The benefits listed on their website are based on the known nutritional profiles of the organs used, not on studies showing that taking six capsules of freeze-dried liver produces measurable health outcomes in people.
That’s not unusual for the supplement industry. Most supplement companies rely on ingredient-level research rather than product-specific trials. But it does mean you’re taking it on faith that the nutrient quantities in each capsule are high enough to make a meaningful difference, especially compared to simply eating a serving of liver once or twice a week.
A 3-ounce serving of cooked beef liver contains roughly 6,500 to 8,000 micrograms of preformed vitamin A. A typical daily dose of Heart and Soil’s liver capsules delivers a fraction of that. If your diet is already reasonably balanced, the additional nutrients from a few capsules may not move the needle much. If you have a genuine deficiency in something like B12 or iron, a targeted supplement with a known dose is often more practical than an organ blend where exact nutrient amounts can vary.
Vitamin A and Safety Considerations
One concern that comes up with liver-based supplements is vitamin A. Liver is extremely high in preformed vitamin A (retinol), and unlike the plant-based form (beta-carotene), your body doesn’t regulate how much retinol it absorbs. The tolerable upper intake for adults is 3,000 micrograms per day. Chronic toxicity can develop when intake regularly exceeds about 8,000 micrograms daily over time.
At the doses Heart and Soil recommends, you’re unlikely to approach toxic levels from the supplement alone. But if you’re also eating liver, taking a multivitamin with vitamin A, or using skincare products containing retinoids, the totals can add up. Pregnant women need to be particularly cautious, as excess preformed vitamin A is linked to birth defects. The recommended intake during pregnancy is 750 to 770 micrograms per day, well below the toxicity threshold but easy to overshoot if you’re stacking multiple sources.
Price Compared to Alternatives
Heart and Soil products typically cost between $40 and $60 for a month’s supply, making them one of the pricier organ supplement brands. Competitors like Ancestral Supplements and One Earth Health offer similar freeze-dried organ capsules at lower price points, often using comparable sourcing (grass-fed, pasture-raised cattle).
The most cost-effective option, by a wide margin, is buying actual organ meats. A pound of grass-fed beef liver from a quality butcher runs $5 to $12 and delivers far more nutrients than a month of capsules. The obvious tradeoff is taste and convenience. Many people find organ meats unpalatable, which is the entire reason this supplement category exists.
What Customers Report
Online reviews for Heart and Soil skew positive, with customers frequently mentioning improved energy and better digestion. Negative reviews tend to focus on the high price, occasional digestive discomfort when starting the supplements, and skepticism about whether the effects are meaningfully different from cheaper alternatives. Some customers also note that the capsules have a faint organ meat smell, which can be off-putting.
It’s worth keeping in mind that subjective improvements in “energy” or “mental clarity” are highly susceptible to placebo effects, especially when someone has invested $50 or more and is already bought into the ancestral health philosophy. That doesn’t mean no one benefits, but self-reported experiences aren’t the same as measured outcomes.
The Bottom Line on Legitimacy
Heart and Soil is a legitimate company selling a real product with genuine nutrients in it. It’s not a scam. The freeze-drying process is appropriate, the sourcing appears to be high quality, and organ meats are genuinely nutritious foods. Where it gets more debatable is whether capsule-form organ supplements deliver enough of those nutrients to justify the premium price, and whether the specific health claims on their marketing go beyond what the evidence supports. If you dislike eating organ meats but want to add some of their nutritional benefits to your diet, these capsules are a reasonable (if expensive) way to do that. If you’re expecting dramatic health transformations, temper those expectations.