Benefits of Bone Broth
From a healthy gut, to radiant skin, hair, and nails, find out the unique benefits of this new food trend
- Heal and seal your gut. The gelatin in the bone broth (found in the knuckles, feet, and other joints) helps seal up holes in intestines. This helps cure chronic diarrhea, constipation, and even some food intolerances.
- Protect your joints. Taking glucosamine supplements to help with joint pain has been common knowledge for years, but it turns out that bone broth has glucosamine too. But unlike pills, the broth also includes a host of other goodies that help keep your joints happy, healthy, and pain-free. The chondroitin sulfate in bone broth has been shown to help prevent osteoarthritis.
- Look younger. Bone broth is a rich source of collagen.
- Sleep better, and feel better. The glycine in bone broth has been shown in several studies to help people sleep better and improve memory.
- Immune support. Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint, actually calls bone broth a “superfood” thanks to the high concentration of minerals. He says that the bone marrow can help strengthen your immune system. A Harvard study even showed that some people with auto-immune disorders experienced a relief of symptoms when drinking bone broth, with some achieving a complete remission.
- Stronger bones. The phosphorus, magnesium, and calcium in the bones seeps out into the broth leaving you with the essential building blocks for healthy bones.
- More energy. It contains with the lots of good nutritional compounds. So that really helps to boost up your energy.
- It’s very economical! Making your own bone broth is very cost effective, as you can make use of left over bones that would otherwise be thrown away. And making your own broth is quite easy.
Easy Chicken Broth Recipe
Ingredients for homemade chicken broth
1 whole free-range chicken or 2 to 3 pounds of bony chicken parts, such as backs, breastbones, and wings
4 quarts cold filtered water
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
1 bunch parsley
Please note the addition of vinegar. Not only are fats are ideally combined with acids like vinegar, but when it comes to making broth, the vinegar helps leech all those valuable minerals from the bones into the stockpot water, which is ultimately what you’ll be eating. The goal is to extract as many minerals as possible out of the bones into the broth water. Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar is a good choice as it’s unfiltered and unpasteurized.
Cooking Directions
There are lots of different ways to make bone broth, and there really isn’t a wrong way. You can find different variations online. Here is some basic directions. If you’re starting out with a whole chicken, you’ll of course have plenty of meat as well, which can be added back into the broth later with extra herbs and spices to make a chicken soup. You can also use it on a salad.
1.Fill up a large stockpot (or large crockpot) with pure, filtered water. (A crockpot is recommended for safety reasons if you have to leave home while it’s cooking.)
2.Add vinegar and all vegetables except parsley to the water.
3.Place the whole chicken or chicken bones (Wing/Drumstick) into the pot.
4.Bring to a boil, and remove any scum that rises to the top.
5.Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and let simmer.
6.If cooking a whole chicken, the meat should start separating from the bone after about 2 hours. Simply remove the chicken from the pot and separate the meat from the bones. Place the bones back into the pot and continue simmering the bones for another 12-24 hours and follow with step 8 and 9.
7.If cooking bones only, simply let them simmer for about 24 hours.
8.Fallon suggests adding the fresh parsley about 10 minutes before finishing the stock, as this will add healthy mineral ions to your broth.
9.Remove remaining bones from the broth with a slotted spoon and strain the rest through a strainer to remove any bone fragments.
References:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/16/bone-broth-benefits.aspx
http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/cooking-ideas/8-reasons-try-bone-broth