Bone Broth: Elixir of the Gods

There are some foods that make you feel like you’re getting hugged on the inside, and this is one of them. In Denmark, they have a word that exemplifies everything cozy, comforting and healing about life. This word is hygge (pronounced hooga). Bone broth is a spoonful of hygge. A sip of this potent liquid healer is like sitting around a warm crackling fire in fuzzy slippers with good people, meditative silences and uplifting conversations, all the things in life that make our souls sing and our hearts open. It is a substance that has quantitative physical healing properties as well as offers the more esoteric feelings of snuggles and hugs.

Just for the taste of it… Bone broth is delicious.

Just for the feeling of it… Bone broth feels good. It has literally “raised us from the dead” on more than one occasion of dealing with fatigue, digestive issues, a serious cold or the flu. We have clients that have replaced their morning caffeine with it because it gives you true cellular energy as opposed to the “false energy” (Chinese medicine term) and inevitable crash of stimulants.

Bone broth and we humans go waaaaaaay back

Bone broth is a traditional healing food that spans continents and millennia. It’s one of those old world foods that was cast aside by industrialization, and the subsequent invention of cheap imitation stand-ins. It’s one of those foods that scientists are now rediscovering really are all that, and more! Bone broth is nothing short of amazing.

Just like your dog, our evolutionary ancestors with big jaws would eat bones and marrow, which afforded them vast health benefits. As our jaws and teeth became smaller, chewing on bones got, well, really hard. Don’t you worry! The amazing nutritional value of bones (and connective tissue) was not lost. With the advent of cooking in pots and making stocks, long slow simmering of bones and cartilage yielded an elixir that was highly prized for its nourishing, healing qualities, and with good reason.

 

Making bone broth is easier than you might think.

If you are like us when we first heard about the glorious properties of bone broth, the thought of it may scare you right out of the kitchen. If you haven’t experienced how simple and rewarding making bone broth can be, you might feel overwhelmed and think you don’t have time or energy for it.

Today, it’s our hope to help you realize that:

1) It’s so worth it! The health and energy boosting benefits of bone broth make it worth taking the time to start that pot of stock today. That’s why it’s a crucial component of our Metabolic Reset Cleanse (not the veg version, of course). More on its benefits shortly…

2) It’s not that hard. This is one of those set it and forget it type recipes. Your involvement is not very time-consuming or complex. People will think you are a gourmet chef even though all you did was boil water and then strain it! In many ways, it’s like a giant pot of hot tea that simmers for almost a day. While it cooks for a long time, your actual interaction with it is only about 45 minutes max (once you have the ingredients). It just requires a little planning ahead to time it right for your unique schedule. Below we share plenty of tips that will help it flow more easily with your lifestyle.

What are all these amazing bone broth benefits you keep talking about?

Your tried and true friend bone broth…

• Supports and promotes healthy digestion (helps heal digestive disorders):  This is a really really big deal! Sometimes when we focus so much on what isn’t working right about our digestion (constipation, gas, bloating, diarrhea, acid reflux, SIBO, leaky gut, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s, etc.), we end up focusing on the things that are harmful to it. It’s also helpful to focus on those things that a gut needs to function optimally.

As it turns out, the whole digestive process in the stomach works best in the presence of hydrophilic colloids (think gelatin here). This is a suspension of small amino acids (protein building blocks) in water. Bone broth is the quintessential hydrophilic colloid if there’s enough gelatin in it, which will make it jiggle like Jello when it gets cold (this is a good thing). Store bought broth is so very very watered down, it doesn’t do this at all.

• Helps heal leaky gut, which is being increasingly linked to food sensitivities, intolerances and allergies as well as just about every autoimmune disease: In addition to helping the stomach digest, the array of amino acids, particularly glutamine, found in bone broth give the cells of your gut lining the building blocks they need for faster cellular turnover. This helps heal the gut lining and prevent leaky gut, which is when the innermost cellular layer that separates what’s in the gut from the rest of the body is compromised. The tight junctures, like mortar between bricks, open and the wrong molecules, like foreign proteins, get through, triggering inflammatory immune responses. This leads to this next one.

• Reduces joint pain and fights inflammation: Healing leaky gut helps to heal the immune system because when undigested proteins leak into your bloodstream it causes inflammation, allergies, and auto-immune reactions. This is known as a state of chronic inflammation. When we have chronic inflammation in our body, our joints often suffer because the natural wear and tear they undergo is a magnet for inflammation. Furthermore, the nutrients from animal bones and connective tissue, like cartilage, provide building blocks for your own body’s tissue repair. Similarly…

• Reduces or minimizes cellulite, strengthens hair, skin and nails: The minerals, collagen and other compounds in bone broth provide the building blocks for healthy tissues, including slowing the breakdown of collagen that makes us, well, saggy as we age.

• Helps you detoxify via glutathione support for the liver and electrolyte support of the kidneys:  What is glutathione, you may ask? It’s a super hero antioxidant that protects your cells from the dangerous free radicals launching like missiles from every single chemical reaction in your body. Without it, you would die a swift and painful death. Yay glutathione!

So how do you get more glutathione in your diet? You don’t! Even if you did, you can’t really absorb it in your gut. Your liver makes it for you as part of it’s phase II detox pathways (see our Cleansing Part 2 article to learn more about it)! If your health is not optimal, which is the case for most modern stressed out people exposed to excess toxins,  you can be pretty darn sure you have low glutathione levels.

The best way to make more is to provide your cells with the building blocks they need to assemble this tripeptide molecule (meaning it’s made from 3 amino acids). It turns out that bone broth provides your body with the perfect balance of the amino acids glycine and glutamine in addition to sulfur, allowing you to make more glutathione to protect every single cell in your body. So when we call it an elixir of the gods, we weren’t exaggerating!

Bone broth provides trace minerals, which are electrolytes that help support kidney function and fluid balance in our body. This helps our kidneys keep our blood clean and our body hydrated!

• Boosts overall immune health: When our detoxification pathways are open, our immune system benefits from less toxicity. Toxins are a huge burden on the immune system. This is one way bone broth boosts our immune function.

Our aforementioned gelatinous friends, hydrophilic colloids, provide building blocks that strengthen our immune system. Furthermore, remember that your gut is the root of your immune system (literally). So, if you heal the gut, you heal the foundation of your natural defenses.

If your gut is the root of your immune system, your microbiome is the foundation of gut health, and overall health. Your microbiome is the sum total of all your body’s microbes, which outnumber your cells somewhere around 10 to 1. They do things for us that our DNA cannot. By helping repair your gut lining, bone broth helps your friendly gut microbes thrive and prosper, which they can’t very well do on inflamed tissues.

What we think of as “bad” microbes are simply specialized to damaged tissue. Form follows function. If your tissues are chronically damaged, microbes that thrive in damaged tissue will prosper (think rotting meat—sorry, folks, but it’s true). If your tissues are healthy, then more and more of what we call the “good” guys will make your gut their habitat.

Ok, now you’ve convinced me. If I make it, what the heck do I do with it?

In many cultures people just drink it straight. For example, in Spain, people drink it hot in a beer glass with fresh mint. It’s uses abound. Bone broth is great…

• on its own
• in a soup, curry or stew, including puree vegetable soups
• as a gravy (add flour, like rice or gluten free oat)
• as a reduction sauce (this is the ultimate umami savory crack with no MSG)
• instead of, or in addition to, (coconut) milk or cream, in a quiche or scrambled eggs
• to cook your veggies in
• instead of water to cook grains like rice, quinoa, polenta and millet
• in any recipe that calls for stock or broth

What’s the difference between bone broth and normal broth or stock?

Bone broth is cooked way longer, which is what releases all its amazing nutrients into solution, which is why bone broth bones totally crumble when you are done cooking them. This is not the case with cooking bones or meat for just an hour or two. In terms of the real stuff, broth, or stock, is a standard for most chefs and cooks around the world. Bone broth, nutritionally speaking, is a whole other beast. The real key that makes bone broth so different is the fact that it is cooked long enough in water, with the help of some acetic acid (vinegar), to dissolve the minerals and collagen in the bones. Normal broth or stock is not usually cooked for 18-24 hours, and while shorter cooking times may still impart some flavor, they provide little of the nutrition locked in the actual bones.

Let’s take another step back and look at what grocery stores and restaurants are trying to pass off as broth these days: bouillon cubes and powders. What the #@?#$! is that stuff, anyway? It’s everywhere! From the most processed cheap foods, to mom’s home cooking and even some “gourmet” restaurants, more and more people use bouillon instead of real broth. Most Americans don’t know the difference.

Here’s what most “bouillon” products are made of: MSG, refined oil, sugars, refined salt, fillers and other artificial flavors of whatever animal it is trying to mimic plus maybe a hint of that actual animal broth reduction (usually factory farm). There are even versions of this that the “natural” foods industry relies on, which is targeted at vegetarians and made from cousins of MSG (autolyzed or hydrolyzed anything and many many more). We teach you how to navigate that whole mess effortlessly in our Closing Your Nurture Gap online courses.

Can I just buy it at the store?

Sure, if you can find perfectly clean, organic brands that don’t cheat and use MSG or it’s natural cousins. Unfortunately, they are most likely missing the magic formula, which is in the preparation and the concentration (of nutrients). Even the best store brand is totally watered down. The box says slow roasted bones, but even this doesn’t mean it has been cooked in water long enough to fully extract the molecular miracle of hydrophilic colloids. Wait, what? No worries, that’s just fancy talk for all the collagen, minerals and glycosaminoglycans (the stuff in joint supplements) found in the bones and joints of animals.

Long cooking time and concentrated goodness is what gives bone broth it’s magical healing powers, and why it tastes so much better than the boxed or canned stuff. Making it yourself, the way we teach, will automatically upgrade your health and your cooking prowess. It’s essentially having the secret to amazing cuisine. In fact, it’s this brothy taste that MSG was invented to mimic.

Let’s take a look at a few products you would find in a store:

1. Swanson’s Chicken Broth:

Check out these ingredient! Do you get the feeling that this “broth” has magical healing properties?  How about not-so-magical inflammatory, accelerated aging qualities? This is basically MSG (neurotoxin) sugar water with a touch of factory farm chicken flavor. There’s a reason no one has written a book called “MSG Sugar Water for the Soul.”

2. Pacific Organic Free Range Chicken Broth

In our opinion, this is a major upgrade. On the up side, it’s organic and has a short list of mostly “natural” ingredients. On the “could do better front,” the “chicken flavor” source is not disclosed and could be a precursor to MSG (digestive enzymes turn it to MSG in your body).  It is not from pastured chicken, so animals are most likely still somewhat confined in warehouses, but aren’t in cages. It has cane sugar, which many people have sensitivties to (know it or not) and which can trigger sugar cravings and unpleasant immune responses. It may not be medicinal, but at least it’s not terribly harmful.  It’s still not our top pick, even in the grocery store world.

3. Pacific Organic Turkey Bone Broth

Thank you, Pacific, for responding to demand. Of the store bought national brands (as opposed to local small companies selling in stores), this one has the cleanest organic ingredients (no sugar or MSG cousins), so this is what we recommend to people who ask for a pre-packaged recommendation (if they are not in an area with a small local business or farmers’ market source). We are not sure how medicinal it is given its very watered down look and taste. It does not get gelatinous when cold, but it does have a decent protein content at 9 grams per cup. This is nowhere near the nutritional value of homemade, so know that this is not exactly what we are talking about when we talk about all the amazing properties of homemade bone broth, but it’s a start.

4. “It’s Food” small, local brand pastured chicken bone broth

This brand is not in Hawaii, just on the mainland, but some Farm Lovers Farmer’s Market vendors in Hawaii are selling bone broth. Traci tried the brand shown below on a trip to the mainland recently, and we’re just using it as an example. The ingredients are excellent, and we love that the chicekns are pastured, which should mean they actually get to roam around outside in a pasture (unlike so-called “free range” and “cage free” warehouse chickens).  However, the ingredients are not labeled organic and the broth, while it had more flavor than the Pacific Bone Broth, it was still on the watery side, but they do profess to cook the bones up to 48 hours, which could explain why it’s not gelatinous (eventually, if you cook it long enough, the gelatin breaks down into collagen).

So, in conclusion, we feel like there are better broth and bone broth options on the market than there ever have been (at least since the industrialization of food). We love coaching people  to feel clear on label reading and shopping for the best products. We get that sometimes we just need to buy certain things premade and don’t think any less of ourselves for it. However, we still feel passionately that there’s no substitute, for the real, homemade, deal when it comes to quality, flavor and healing powers of bone broth.

What kinds of bones are best and does it really need to be made with organic or grass fed animals? Can I just use my rotisserie chicken bones?

These are very common questions:

Any animal’s bones can be used to make bone broth, like chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, pork or fish. It’s up to you to decide if you want to mix and match or separate by species. Fish bones cook faster, beef bones take longer, and poultry is middle of the road. It just depends on bone density.

Bone quality absolutely matters. Healthy animals make a healthy you. Without going on a long diatribe about the hormonal, epigenetic and immunological effects of factory farm animal products (read here tortured animals for cheap meat), we will just say, a) sick animals can make you sick, and b) we do hope you care about animal welfare.

Please use grass fed or pastured animals if possible. If not, please at least get organic. Consider meat sources other than your grocery store. For example, you can find a local rancher, such as at a farmer’s market. You can even order it online if you truly live in a food desert. If you truly have no access to organic, try to get the most humanely raised “natural” meat you can (no antibiotics, chemicals, etc). Mary’s natural chicken is non-GMO, whereas other “natural” meats use GMO corn and soy. If budget is a concern, we feel like it is better to eat high quality meat and just less of it.

We really don’t recommend rotisserie chicken carcasses unless the animals are sourced as described above (from a health food store as opposed to a mainstream grocery chain).

What’s the deal with chicken feet and what if they scare me?

First of all, if chicken feet seem freaky, you don’t have to use them in your broth. We even used to have a butcher at Whole Food’s who was totally creeped out by touching them, so don’t feel bad if they give you the willies. On the other hand, if you grew up in a culture, like Mexico, where kids grow up delightfully chewing on fried chicken feet like they are the Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe, then throwing some chicken feet in a pot of broth ain’t no thang for you. You know where this is going, don’t you? You can sense that we are going to make a case for chicken feet in your broth. You know that we are using cultural relativity to manipulate, um, that is, persuade you. We mean, we want to see if we can open your mind to get a foot (or chicken feet), in the door, but it’s for your own good!

Chicken feet are extremely high in collagen, making them one of the healthiest parts of the chicken. Adding them supercharges the tissue building and healing properties of your broth. If they gross you out, pour the bag into your pot real quick and try focusing on the amazing benefits the hydrophilic colloids will impart instead of the bumpy skin and toenails!

Tips and tricks:

• Keep a bone bag in your freezer to save your bones from chicken dishes you eat on a regular basis. When you have filled the better part of a produce bag or gallon size plastic bag, get ready to make broth.
• Keep a veggie scraps bag. Save leftovers from cutting up vegetables for other projects in the kitchen. For instance, you might cut off parts of the onion, carrot, celery, or any vegetable that you would otherwise compost or throw away. Put them in a bag and save them in your freezer.
• When you are ready to start your broth, you can simply take both bags out and dump them in your pot, then add the fresh items, salt, vinegar and water.
• Don’t make bone broth with just bones. Having some raw meat in the pot adds a lot of flavor to your broth. So, even if you have all of your frozen bones saved up, we suggest still adding inexpensive, bony cuts with meat on them, for optimum flavor (otherwise, it just kind of tastes like rock soup).
• Plan your bone broth timing so you have time to debone the meat and set it aside or time to let it cool and packge it up at the end. For example, if you are a 9 to 5 worker and want to do it during the week, you might want to start it in the early evening right after work, quickly debone the meat (optional) right before bed, take the broth off the stove early the next evening when you get home from work, then strain and package it after dinner. Make sure it’s cool before freezing, even if this means leaving it in the fridge overnight.
• Have containers and freezer or fridge space ahead of time. Package the broth in serving size, say pint size, jars with empty space at the top. This way, you only thaw what you need and one pot can last a long time.
• You can also use an electric crock pot (slow cooker) if you aren’t comfortable leaving your stove on while you are away from your house. They are usually less voluminous than a stock pot, holding around 4-6 quarts total. Adjust ingredients accordingly. Note: for the record, no one we know of has burned down their house simmering bone broth!
• If you want to outsource your bone broth making, but don’t want to sacrifice quality, we offer Personal Chef Services and can add bone broth to your food order or just make you a large batch to freeze if you supply the jars.

To learn more about healing yourself with food (as well as other lifestyle and mind-body tools), check out our functional health coaching services and online programs.

Please share in the comments  section below your experiences with the healing powers of bone broth. Also, we would love to know how you do with this recipe!