The benefits of bone broth can be found everywhere.
Especially for healing Leaky Gut.
They are also quite surprising!
Bone broth is not only simple to make but also gives your immune system a boost. There are amino acids in bone broth. These are arginine, glutamine, and cysteine.
Bone broth can help with the common cold and bronchitis. A Chicken Soup study published in Chest (the official journal of the American College of Chest Physicians) in the year 2000 looked at chicken bone broth. They found that it helps in improving the symptoms of the common cold. It did this by clearing mucus and opening the respiratory system, as well as providing easily digested nutrition. Sometimes all you can eat is bone broth when you feel sick right?
I use it in cooking as well - I love it!
Also, according to the UCLA professor and medical doctor, Irwin Ziment, chicken soup contains the amino acid cysteine, which resembles the bronchitis drug acetylcysteine. You have to wonder why this is not more widely publicised. But I guess when drug companies can sell cold and flu drugs every day, why would they promote something that you can make at home for a few dollars?
In fact you wonder if they actually pay people to discredit natural remedies? That would make a good marketing investment, wouldn’t it.
Bone broth actually improves your hydration. Something we all can do with. Your bowel alone needs hydration daily to function. Bone broth, especially when it has added vegetables (mine does), adds vital minerals to the diet. Studies have shown that drinking broth can rehydrate you better than water alone. This is due to the electrolytes it contains. Forget the Coca-Cola marketed electrolyte drinks with red and blue dyes - they are just junk.
Bone broth is also a great source of L-glutamine which is an essential amino acid (the building block of protein). This is vital for the body and gut health. L-glutamine has shown it can reduce the bacteria Firmicutes in the gut and this can aid in weight loss.
Studies have also shown that many of the amino acids in bone broth reduce inflammation. These are cystine, histidine, and glycine. L-glutamine specifically reduces gut inflammation. That’s what we want ladies!
Gelatin found in bone broth has even more health benefits;
- It can help strengthen your nails
- It can improve sleep
- Cell improvement can help with Anti-aging
- It can help normalise stomach acid. This can help those with colitis, celiac disease, auto-immune conditions, and ulcers
- It can protect cells from damage and disease
- It can help diabetes and lower blood sugar
- Gelatin supports insulin regulation
- It also helps regulate bleeding. Including nosebleeds, heavy menstruation, ulcers, and haemorrhoids
Delicious Healing Bone Broth
Ingredients
Instructions
- You can make it in a slow cooker, a large stovetop pot, or a pressure cooker which is by far the quickest way.
- Save all your chicken and turkey bones (legs and wing bones are best) and any steak bones from meals. I save the bones off the plates after dinner and throw them into a freezer bag or glass sealed container. Keep a ziplock bag or glass container in the freezer with all your vegetable scraps. I add the stalks off broccoli, carrot tops stalks off silverbeet (chard), and the celery leaves off organic celery. Even kale stalks. I also buy chicken frames from the local produce store for about $3.
- First, roast the uncooked chicken frames in the oven for 40 minutes at 200C (400F). Add these cooked bones and the other cooked bones from the freezer into the Instant pot, crockpot, or stovetop pot. My instant pot is 5.7 liters so I had the equivalent of 2-3 chickens worth of bones.
- Then throw in all your vegetable bits and pieces from the freezer. I also add one onion unpeeled but chopped in half. Two large pieces of turmeric root chopped roughly. One large piece of ginger root cut into large pieces.
- I buy my organic ginger in season, and store it and my turmeric root in the freezer. Then I have it to use all year round (you can grate it from frozen as needed)
- Add one whole head of garlic, again, unpeeled and chop the whole head in half.
- Add the 2 tablespoons of celtic sea salt, a handful of peppercorns, and then add the apple cider vinegar to help break down the bones.
- Top the pot up to the maximum liquid level line with filtered or alkaline water.
- Set it on to cook (on high pressure) for 3.5 hours if you have a pressure cooker or 24 hours on low for the crockpot. For the stove top; I cook it all day on low heat (low simmer). I then switch it off overnight for safety, then cook a few more hours the next morning and it's done.
- Once cooked, the bones will turn to mush if you try to squash or break them so that's your test.
- Remove the large bones using tongs. Then using a fine sieve over a large jug pour the broth into your large jug and then pour into glass jars.
- Don't fill the jars all the way to the top if you are freezing them.
- Fill to the 3⁄4 line of the jar - let cool in the fridge overnight then freeze.
- Delicious!
- You can also make cubes of frozen broth using ice cube trays. That way you can defrost as you need. I always ensure I have a jar of broth in the fridge for cooking as well as for drinking. It's a delicious addition to stir-fries and stews.