Bone Broth for your healthy life-Traditional and Superior Super food

December 08, 2015

Bone broths are given special emphasis among traditional foods circles. Bone broth is one of those foods that has faded in popularity, but which is coming back thanks to its numerous health benefits, copious nutrients, and great versatility.

Unfortunately, you can’t rely on store-bought broths and stocks. These most often contain artificial flavors, MSG, too much salt, and even when organic, lack the most important nutrients that you get from homemade stock. With a little practice you can learn to make a nutritious and delicious broth that can easily become an important and life-changing part of your daily diet.

The Health Benefits of Bone Broth

Everyone is familiar with the idea of using chicken soup to heal someone with a cold, the flu or nearly any other illness. That old tradition is based in the simple fact that good, homemade stock or broth is chock full of important and healing nutrients. You can’t use canned chicken soup to heal anyone, but homemade soup can work wonders. What makes bone broth so special is the concentration of nutrients, like minerals, collagen, and amino acids that work wonders for your health.

Fighting infections

The tradition of feeding someone chicken soup for a cold is an old one and it really works. Of course, condensed and canned soup won’t do, but homemade chicken broth has been proven in scientific studies to reduce the symptoms of upper respiratory infections by bolstering the immune system and reducing inflammation.

Recovery after exercise

Bone broth has also been shown to help athletes recover after a workout. It both rehydrates and resupplies the body with electrolytes lost through sweating. The amino acids, building blocks of proteins, found in bone broth are also helpful for rebuilding muscle after exercise, especially strength training.

Healthy digestion

Bone broth promotes digestion, thanks to gelatin. The same gelatin that goes into Jell-O products comes from the collagen and other proteins in bones, tendons, hooves, and ligaments of animals.

You get a healthy dose of gelatin in every serving of bone broth. Gelatin promotes digestion by sealing and healing the gut. It lines the inside of the gastrointestinal tract (GI), preventing nutrients from leaking out while also reducing inflammation. This makes bone broth especially helpful for anyone with leaky gut syndrome.

Liver health and function

Gelatin is essentially a mixture of proteins and proteins are built out of amino acids. One of those amino acids, glycine, is abundant in gelatin and is essential for liver health. The liver is the body’s detoxing organ, but its ability to detoxify is limited to how much glycine it can access. To keep your liver in tip-top detoxifying shape, glycine from daily bone broth is a good start.

Bone health

Not surprisingly, a broth made using bones is good for your bones. In studies with mice, those given gelatin as part of their daily protein had significantly higher mineral content in their bones and higher bone density. Other studies have pointed to the fact that collagen, which is found in bone broth, can help strengthen the bones of people with osteoporosis.

Joint health

You can take glucosamine and chondroitin supplements for your joints or you can get these important nutrients directly from the source in the matrix of nutrients nature intended. Bone broth is rich in these nutrients that are necessary for properly functioning joints. They help reduce inflammation and reduce pain.

Hair and nail growth

Gelatin supports the growth of hair and nails, both of which are made of protein. If you have weak or brittle nails or hair, you will notice them strengthen after a couple of weeks of supplementing your diet with bone broth. With greater strength they will both be able to grow longer.

Beautiful skin

The same collagen and gelatin that promotes hair and nail health may also make your skin look more youthful. Collagen is very elastic and gives our skin that bounce-back effect. As we get older we produce less collagen and our skin starts to sag. Collagen-rich bone broth may help fight that loss of elasticity and result in smoother, less wrinkly, and more youthful-looking skin.

Fight inflammation

Bone broth has a lot of protein, but it is particularly stocked with the amino acids proline, arginine, and glycine. All of these are important in reducing inflammation in the body. This may be the reason that broth helps to fight infections, like colds and the flu.

Sleep better

The amino acid glycine has a calming effect on the mind and body, so a daily dose of bone broth promotes good quality sleep. Glycine is also important for improving brain-functioning and memory.

Vitamins and minerals

Bone broth is chock full of vitamins and minerals. Particularly important are the fat-soluble vitamins, like vitamin D. These vitamins are best absorbed when eaten with fat, which means that bone broth is an excellent source. Bone broth also contains minerals that are well-absorbed in this form including calcium, magnesium, silicon, and phosphorous.

Gelatin vs. Bone Broth

Many of the healthful benefits of bone broth come from the naturally occurring gelatin. You can supplement your diet with pure gelatin, so is it necessary or better to use bone broth instead? The answer is yes. You will get some nutritional benefits from just using gelatin, but you get much more out of bone broth.

One reason is that for your body to utilize the amino acids in gelatin that are so healthful you also need fat-soluble vitamins A and D.These are found in animal products, so including the meat and fat from the bones in your broth makes it a more complete nutritional supplement.

Gelatin by itself can’t provide these vitamins. Another reason to use broth in favor of gelatin is for all the other nutrients, especially the minerals, that are found in bones, cartilage, and other tissues used to make it.

How to Make Bone Broth

Aside from the miraculous nutrition in bone broth, the great thing about it is how easy it is to make. You can make one big pot of broth and use it for days. All you really need are bones and fresh, cold water, but you can add other elements too. Include organic vegetables or herbs for extra flavor and nutrition.

You can also add salt to taste, but avoid refined salt. Use Himalayan pink salt, Celtic sea salt, or Redmond salt. You can also combine different kinds of animal bones and extras to create unique flavors.

Add your bones and any other extra animal parts you have for the broth to a large pot of cold water. It’s important that the water starts cold because slow heating is the best way to bring out the most flavors from the bones.

Add a splash of vinegar to the pot as well. I use Bragg’s apple cider vinegar. This will help release more calcium and will break down any pieces of meat left on the bones. Heat the pot slowly until the water starts to boil, then turn it down to a low simmer.

As the broth cooks you will see a sort of “scum” rise to the surface. For the best tasting broth, skim this off occasionally and dispose of it. It is made of large proteins, alkaloids, and impurities that can make your broth taste funny.

If you’re making fish broth, you will have a finished product with just a couple of hours of simmering. For poultry, let is simmer all day and for beef broth you may need to let it simmer overnight. When your broth is ready, strain it with a sieve or colander.

You can refrigerate the broth for several days or freeze it to keep it for months. You can also boil your broth down to create a jelly-like substance, which can be rehydrated later with fresh water. This is a good way to keep broth if your freezer space is limited.