healthyeats: Bone Broth- How and Why

Making Beef Bone Broth

about 2-3kg of bones (beef marrow, knuckle bones, meaty rib, neck bones – whatever the butcher will give you)
about 3-4 litres of cold water
1/2 cup vinegar
2-3 onions, coarsely chopped
3 carrots, coarsely chopped
3 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
several sprigs of fresh thyme, tied together
1 teaspoon dried green peppercorns, crushed or a tsp black peppercorns

Place the bonier bones (ie not much meat) in a very large pot with vinegar and cover with water. Let stand for one hour.

Meanwhile, place the meaty bones in a roasting pan and brown at 350 degrees in the oven. When well browned, add to the pot along with the vegetables.

Add additional water, if necessary, to cover the bones; but the liquid should come no higher than within one inch of the rim of the pot, as the volume expands slightly during cooking.

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add the thyme and crushed peppercorns.

Simmer 12-72 hours.

As Sally says: You will now have a pot of rather repulsive-looking brown liquid containing globs of gelatinous and fatty material. It doesn’t even smell particularly good.

Strain the lot (you’ll need to use tongs our your hands to pull out the bones) into a large bowl. Let cool in the fridge and then…

Operation Remove Fat Layer.

This is a little grose, but somehow satisfying. The congealed fat on top is usually a good 1-2cm thick and you can literally pick it up in chunks (like ice over a pond) and turf it.

Divide into containers and freeze/eat.

some things to know:

You brown the meatier of the bones in the oven first to 200 degrees C for 45-90 minutes. Lamb/beef bones give better broth if roasted in the oven first.
Acid is necessary in order to extract the minerals from the bone. Add some vinegar to aid in leaching these minerals – in particular calcium -and other nutrients from the bones.
The water should be cold, because slow heating helps bring out flavors.
Stock will keep several days in the fridge…I mostly freeze it though.
Boiled down it concentrates and becomes a jellylike fumée or demi-glaze that can be reconstituted into a sauce by adding water.

some things to do with bone broth:

* Drink it like a soup

* Make this amazing Wild Mushroom stew.

* Braise vegetables with it. I use a tablespoon or two instead of oil when doing stirfries.

* Gravy!!!

The first time I made beef stock, it wasn’t very good and didn’t become brown enough, but was an insipid beige color. The second time I made it, it didn’t gell, but it tasted good. It’s amazing that I tried again, but I guess it made success all the more sweet. Here are some tips to increase your success.

Try to use several types of bones. These can be bought from your butcher pretty cheaply. Grass-fed beef is better, but don’t stress too much about it, better to get the basics down first.
always brown your meaty bones really well on both sides before putting them into the pot. This step is the most important.
throw any leftover meat in the pot, or save to cut up and put in soup. If you cook it into the stock, you won’t be able to eat it in the soup, because all of the flavor will be simmered out of it. I guess some recipes could work using the meat, say in something highly spiced.
Save bits of meat in a bag in the freezer to add to the stockpot. Label your bag though so you know what it is for!
My husband hates this one, but don’t give your dogs your beef bones until you’re done making broth out of them. Only give the dogs the bones that are still hard when they come out of the broth, none of the really soft ones.
Do NOT skip the vinegar step, it draws the minerals out of the bones
Freeze your carrot, garlic, onion and celery trimmings in a bag, and add to the pot
Let the pot sit for longer than you think is possible, it will be fine over 2 or even 3 days. Turn the stove off at night if you want and then turn it back on in the morning. If you don’t lift the lid, it will still be at a good temperature in the morning unless your house gets really cold at night (under 60 degrees).
If you don’t like the flavor of your broth, don’t worry, just simmer it longer, maybe leaving the lid off if it’s too pale. Once it reduces, you can see what the flavor is really like and then add some celtic sea salt to bring out the flavors.

Top 5 Reasons Why Bone Broth is The Bomb. Here we go!

Reason #1: Bone Broth Makes Your Joints Feel as Smooth as Eggs.

Yes, that was a Dave Chappelle reference. If you don’t get it, don’t worry about it.

Anyway…

In her ridiculously awesome book Deep Nutrition, Dr. Cate Shanahan writes…

“The health of your joints depends upon the health of the collagen in your ligaments, tendons, and on the ends of your bones. Collagens are a large family of biomolecules, which include the glycosaminoglycans, very special molecules that help keep our joints healthy.”

Bone broth is loaded with glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). In fact, I’m absolutely certain that you’ve heard of one of them — glucosamine. Yep, those supplements that seemingly everyone is taking for joint health contain one of the GAGs we get from consuming bone broth.

You know me, I’m a food-first kind of guy. Here’s just one of the reasons why I prefer Real Food over supplementation…

Notice I said that glucosamine is just one of the GAGs contained in bone broth. When you consume broth you also get chondroitin, hyaluronic acid, and likely a bunch of other equally important GAGs that have yet to be discovered.

What’s more, the GAGs we get from bone broth are resistant to digestion and are absorbed in their intact form. According to Dr. Cate, these intact GAGs like hormones, stimulating cells calledfibroblasts which lay down collagen in the joints, tendons, ligaments, and even the arteries.

I can personally attest to the joint-healing benefits of bone broth. Before I began drinking it regularly, I had been dealing with a lingering dull pain in my left shoulder. After about a week and a half of daily consumption, the pain completely vanished. My knees feel much better when running stairs as well.

It’s truly powerful stuff!

Reason #2: Bone Broth Makes Your Hair, Skin, and Nails Look Dead Sexy.

I know people who, in a quest to recapture a youthful appearance, will pay top dollar for products that boost collagen — also the main constituent of hair, skin, and nails.

As we age, production of collagen declines and we start to see the outward signs of aging.

Out here in San Diego (Land of The Beautiful), botox — a drug made from a toxin produced by the bacterium clostridium botulinum — is all the craze for the reduction of lines and wrinkles.

That’s kinda weird, in my opinion. And expensive.

Personally, I’d much rather prepare and consume bone broth to keep my skin, hair (if I had any), and nails looking fabulous than have a toxin injected into my face.

But that’s just me.

(By the way, broth is super cheap to make on your own.)

Reason #3: Bone Broth Heals Your Gut!

Let’s keep it real. Most people reading this blog right now are experiencing some kind of gastrointestinal challenge — constipation, diarrhea, food sensitivities, leaky gut, or even autoimmune disease.

One of the most vital nutrients for healing the gut is gelatin. Yep, the stuff that makes the Jell-O jiggle.

There was a time when gelatin was the most studied nutrient under the sun for all of its healing virtues. Times have certainly changed.

To make a long story short, the intestinal lining is supposed to be permeable in order for nutrients to pass through. However, this lining can become too permeable due to lifestyle factors such as poor diet, stress, long-term contraceptive use, as well as bacterial and fungal overgrowths. Just think of poking huge holes in your window screens at home. Yes, the good air will pass through, but the flies, gnats, and mosquitoes will too.

This is how leaky gut — or gut hyperpermeability — works. Undigested food particles can slip through the gut lining and pass directly into the bloodstream. No bueno! When this happens, the immune system freaks out and starts attacking the very foods you eat — we call these food sensitivities.

Over time, this can turn into an autoimmune issue by which your immune system thinks your thyroid — or any other tissue, for that matter — looks like the piece of steak molecule it’s been fighting off for the past few years. In other words, your body starts to attack itself.

According to our good friend Dr. Thomas O’Bryan, autoimmunity will soon be the number one cause of death in this country. Gut hyperpermeability is a big reason why.

What does bone broth have to do with any of this? Well, the gelatin in bone broth spackles the excess holes in the gut lining, so to speak. It’s quite the handyman, and should be part of any gut-healing protocol.

Reason #4: Bone Broth Reduces Your Need for Meat and Protein.

This is pretty darn interesting. In her fantastic Real Food Summit (RFS) presentation, Sarah Pope revealed that studies conducted in the 1800s demonstrated that when there is plenty of gelatin in the diet, the body’s need for protein from meat sources can be reduced by as much as fifty-percent!

We all know that purchasing quality meats can be hard on the wallet. The good news is that you can make bone broth for dirt cheap and thus save money on meat.

Not a bad deal.

Reason #5: Bone Broth Helps Get the Toxins Out.

Here’s another golden nugget from Mrs. Pope. The liver is the master organ of detoxification. Unfortunately, it was never intended to withstand the very toxic, chemical nature of today’s world.

The liver is certainly under assault on a daily basis, and its capacity to detoxify is limited by the availability of the amino acid glycine.

Guess where you can get tons of glycine from? Bone broth, baby!

For now, forget about all the fancy detox programs you’ve heard about. Do your liver a favor by giving it what it needs to do its job most effectively.

Gosh, I can go on and on with this blog. The benefits of consuming bone broth are endless. That’s why it’s the bomb.