When it comes to foods that can provide you with amazing health benefits, there’s one thing that never seems to get the amount of attention it deserves, at least not in my opinion. Let’s talk about bone broth!
Bone broth is essentially a stock for soups and other cooking needs that can be made from simmering animal bones, connective tissue, and whatever else you may wish to simmer along with them for additional flavour, such as vegetables. What we do at my house, is save the bones from roasted chickens and from our festive turkeys that we have with family at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. One large freezer bag of turkey bones and tissues, for example, can yield about 4L of pretty concentrated stock! This week’s recipe is going to be on how to make bone broth, so be sure to check that out by clicking here when you’re done this blog.
Bone broth is not only a great way to make sure that all parts of any animals we eat don’t go to waste, but the health benefits are incredible! It is highly nutritious! You can pretty much use any animal bones, so chicken, turkey, pig, cow, venison, fish, lamb...you get the idea. I personally love chicken and turkey broth, and thank goodness, because we eat lots of both and I love that I can make a big batch of several litres each year!
You can use any connective tissues, whatever is leftover from the animal, basically (spines, feet, beaks, hooves, fins, whole carcasses). The nutrient content is always dependent on the quality of the ingredients.
According to Healthline, here are the nutrients bone broth offers:
Bone: Calcium, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium, and potassium.
Marrow: Vitamins A, B2, B12, and E, omega-3s, omega-6s, and minerals such as calcium, iron, selenium, and zinc.
Connective Tissue: Glucosamine, chondroitin – which are incredible in assisting with joint pain and arthritis.
These items cooked together are largely made up of the protein, collagen, which is the most abundant protein in the human body, and benefits muscles, bones, skin, joints, and hair. This turns into gelatin when cooked, which has a unique profile of amino acids, and is particularly high in the amino acids glycine (can help you relax and has anti-inflammatory properties), arginine (has anti-inflammatory properties), and proline (plays an important role in immune responses, and which the body uses to make its own collagen).
Bone broth can provide structural support and elasticity to bones, tendons, skin, cartilage, and joints, which makes it a great choice for people who have arthritis, osteoarthritis, and joint pain. Osteoporosis is also marked by reduced levels of collagen in the bones. More protein, more collagen (glycine & proline), better bones. It is amazing for gut health as well, since it is a powerful detoxification agent that helps the digestive system expel waste, and promotes the liver’s ability to remove toxins. It really is an amazing food!
Next up, gut health! Bone broth is said to be very helpful when it comes to dealing with leaky gut! The nutrients collagen, gelatin, glycine, and glutamine, have all been shown to soothe gut irritation and inflammation, strengthen the gut barrier, and reduce the presence of LPS (lipopolysaccharide toxins) in the blood.
Bone broth is pretty amazing, and for this week’s recipe, I’m going to show you how easy it is to make bone broth, and give the first soup recipe of the season. I know it’s a couple of weeks early, but I guess I’m getting a little bit excited for Autumn.
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