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Benefits of Bone Broth

Aloha Friends!

This week I spent a considerable amount of time researching bone broth and I would like to share some interesting information I found with you. There are plenty of articles and blogs online that tout the benefits of bone broth, often repeating the same basic information over and over again. I wanted a deeper understanding of the nutritional aspects of bone broth and so I turned to a book by the famous Sally Fallon of the Weston A Price  Foundation called Nourishing Broth. 

I became interested in the subject when I started the meat market and realized there was a growing demand for bones. I soon found out that my customers were purchasing bones in order to make bone broth. I had heard this new buzz word but wasn't entirely sure what it meant or what the difference was between bone broth, soup, stock, or plain old broth. After months of selling the bones I decided it was ridiculous that I hadn't tried it out myself and finally made my own batch. 

This happened to be during a time where my body had undergone some serious stress. I had been recovering from a late miscarriage that left me exhausted and drained and in need of daily coffees. I had been focused on eating healthy but didn't feel much improvement even after 4-5 months. 

I was a sceptic, as I always am, and conducted my own personal experiment with bone broth. I made a large batch of broth with grass-fed beef bones and divided it into ice cube trays that I kept in the freezer for quick recipes. I added it to just about everything I possible could, consuming about a cup a day. Eventually my body started to crave the bone broth and my energy levels were normalizing after about the second month. At that point I added in small supplements of liver along with the bone broth and I was able to ditch coffee completely. I hadn't felt that kind of natural energy for years.

Overall my joints and muscles feel great, digestion is better, and my skin, nails, and hairs have had a marked improvement. Now this is just my account but I have heard from many customers, personal successes after regularly consuming broth. It is amazing that as a 1st world country we have gotten so far away from the ancient wisdom of collagen rich traditional diets. Skinless, boneless chicken breast being accepted as a health food is a perfect example. There are so many benefits that can be gained from traditional wisdom.

History of Bone Broth

Humans have been boiling broth for thousands of years even before the pot existed. The original bone broth was made in the abdominal cavities of slaughtered animals, heated with hot stones. The invention of the pot made all this much easier and since then healing soups and broths became universal. All cultures around the world incorporate some form of bone broth as medicine or for health benefits. We are still familiar with many of these remedies today- chicken soup for instance or the many soups of asian cultures. I have a number of customers who purchase pigs trotters  to make Chinese pigs feet soup with the large amount of collagen found in the feet, often consumed for recovery.

For the same reason our hospitals have included soup and jello as part of the meal plans for their patients. Unfortunately today's traditional stock has been replaced by powdered reconstituted "soup" that is not much more than flavoring and msg. This tends to be a problem with most of our processed food that would normally be flavored with the rich components of broth or stock. Inspecting the ingredients of buillon is not encouraging. Now with the "bone-broth" craze plastic packaged substitutes are being mass produced without the true benefits of real bone broth. You can inspect the quality by looking at the protein content of the broth. True bone broth will have a high protein content.

How does it work?

Studies on bone broth are lacking, most likely because there is little financial gain for funders of a proposed study. However, we can look at studies that have been done on the components of bone broth and get an idea why it encourages a healthy body. One simple explanation to the question is "You are what you eat." Bones contain the complete formula for bone building, common sense right? The same goes for other animal organs that share similar make up as our organs- the eyes are good for your eyes, the skin is good for your skin, liver is good for your liver. Maybe its not so weird after all that grandma always ate the eyeballs of the fish!

I was surprised to read a book recently that promoted a vegan diet and spoke of a time when the author had been suffering from ill health and a couple of broken bones. She recalls searching the internet and not finding anything about animal products being helpful for bone healing. That was hard to read for me of course and also baffling because is one of the recommended foods for bone healing due to its calcium content. Ironically western nutrition doesn't have much information about broth for bone healing. If you specifically type it into the search you will find article upon article.

The minerals in bones are important for healing but it is entirely possible to have bones thick with calcium that are weak and crack under tension, just like unreinforced concrete. This is because bones are made up of 28% collagen which keeps them resilient. Collagen is the main components of all connective tissues in the body. Bones and connective tissue require a cocktail of many nutrients that are all found in a good old fashion cup of broth.

Here are some of the suggested benefits of bone broth:
-The body's ability to repair connective tissue diminishes with age and ill health. Broth supports and encourages healing of bone, tendon, ligament, cartilage, skin, hair, and nails.
-Improves digestion and healing the lining of the gut
-Improves joint pain (bone broth includes glucosamine and chondroiton sulfate)
-Supports hearth health- strengthens blood vessels, arteries, and cell walls. 
-Improves a variety of autoimmune disorders and skin diseases
-Speeds the recovery of ailments 
-Prevents premature aging
-Improves digestibility of beans and certain grains


Power Properties of Bone Broth

Bone is made up of 50% minerals, 28% collagen, and 22% water. There are trace amounts of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and a few others. Surprisingly, bone broth isn't actually a great source of these minerals but it does provide these minerals in a bioavailable form, meaning they are easily and readily absorbed. 

Bone Broth also contains cartilage. Cartilage molecules are made up of amino acids, proteoglycans, and other nutrients. The protein in bone broth includes 4 main conditionally essential amino acids that have important roles in our bodies. Proteins are made up of building blocks called amino acids. There are 9 essential amino acids that we must get from our diet and 11 non-essential or conditionally essential amino acids that our bodies can make considering we are in near perfect health. Researchers continue to study isolated amino acids for their health benefits but we do have a good idea of the roles they play in our body. The 4 main amino acids in bone broth are: 

1. Proline (low in plant foods): collagen formation, prevention of arteriosclerosis, healthy skin, and tissue repair

2. Glycine (low in plant foods): wound healing, required for detoxification of toxic metals, pesticides, and chemicals, precursor for glutathione (a powerful antioxidant), and improves methylation (I will speak about this in another newsletter but methylation is a process in which increased methionine levels contribute to aging and health problems. Methionine is an amino acid that is in high levels in muscle meat. Another good reason to balance your diet and include organ meats and bone broth.) 

3. Glutamine: plays a large roll in cell proliferation including the growth and healing of villi in the small intestine aiding to gut health, helps heal ulcers, helps IBS, colitis, and various AI disorders, supports liver health and detoxification, can help counter effect of chemo, benefits the brain and neurological disorders.

That being said some people react poorly to glutamate in the diet which can be caused by various factors but has been seen in people with lead toxicity or a build up of MSG in the diet. Autistic children also sometimes react poorly to glutamate even in its natural form, however bone broth is recommended for the GAPS diet. Their solution is to boil broth for less time and gradually increase boiling time over the course of the diet. This is because boiling increases the amino acid concentrations in the broth- hence true bone broth having more protein than regular broth. 

4. Alanine: roles in liver function, glycolysis (breakdown of glucose), gluconeogenisis (production of glucose), and the citric acid cycle (cellular energy metabolism.) 

Proteoglycans are another component of bone broth and are found within the collagenous fiber networks in skin cartilage and bones. Their main job is to hold water. Hylaluronic Acid (HA is a type of proteoglycan made up of thousands of protein sugars, including chondroitin surface and keratin sulfate. It lubricates and cushions joints, muscles, bones, and is a major component of synovial fluid. They also carry nutrients to cartilage, which is important since cartilage doesn't have blood vessels to do so. This is also why studies have shown greater benefit to joints when bone broth or collagen is consumed 15-20 minutes before exercise and the nutrients have more circulation into the joint areas. The ability of skin to produce HA decreases with age and you will often see a genetically modified version of this found in skin creams and lotions. 

Glucosamine is another component of bone broth, which helps repair cartilage, decrease inflammation, alleviate joint pain, and increase range of motion. Anyone who has ever had knee problems and supplemented with glucosamine will usually testify to this. It also helps repair the defensive barrier in the mucosa of the gut called the glycosaminoglycan layer (GAG). Defects in the GAG layer contribute to AI disorders. 

Conclusion...Finally!

So if that wasn't enough to bore you with I recommend looking more into the subject if you are into nutrition because it is extremely interesting. I could go on for many more paragraphs but for the sake of not being more confusing lets just say its probably not a bad idea to include bone broth in your diet.

The quality of the bones definitely matters. Animals store toxins in the fat of the bone marrow. I only recommend using bones of animals you know were cared for and lived on healthy soils (traces of lead has been found in chicken broth made from chickens that lived on lead containing soil.) You will noticed impurities in your bone broth if using conventional bones as they will rise to the surface of the water and create a nasty muck. 

How To Make It

Of the various recipes for bone broth I recommend a few simple steps. Rinse bones in water then roast in the over at 400 degrees  for 15-20 minutes. You can do this even if the bones are still frozen. There are 3 ways to cook bones down: 1. Stovetop on a very low simmer all day. 2. Slowcooker all day and overnight. 3. Pressure cooker 2-4 hours. I do recommend to skim off any fat before pressure cooking as the fatty acids will oxidize with the excess heat. Save that aside for "marrow butter" mmmm. 

Make sure to add a couple tablespoons of vinegar to your broth to help extract the minerals and use the bones for up to 3 batches. You can measure 4 quarts of water per 5lbs of bones (for beef) or just fill water to cover bones. It doesn't have to be a perfect science. I don't recommend adding salt or many flavors until you prepare a dish with the bone broth. When I make bone broth I just add some peppercorns and a few bay leaves. Some people like to add vegetables like celery and onions but I prefer to do that when preparing my meal. 
 
I will be making various types on bone broth in the very near future including wild boar broth, chicken broth, beef broth, and kombu fish broth. There are tons of ways to incorporate bone broth into your meals but my personal favorite is gravy. By concentrating, thickening, and seasoning the broth you can improve the taste of so many things. I also love to deglaze my pans with bone broth to make lovely sauces for my meats. You can substitute bone broth for water in many rice and grain preparations, add it to vegetable or potato mashes, use it for soups like won ton, egg drop, soba, miso. I have a customer who even puts it in their burger meat to increase the moisture. The best part about using bone broth is that it adds incredible flavor to your creations. You can also get these same benefits by eating more braised meat on the bone like our beef Ros

Okay I'm going to officially sign off now. I apologize for the lack of photos or typos in this weeks newsletter. This one has probably taken me the longest to write. If you have made it this far I would also like to add that our boat has been catching a lot of ono this week and we do have vacuum sealed frozen ono available for order. Just add it to the comments section of your order form or email me if you prefer. info@foragehawaii.com. 

If you have any question or concerns or think I got something wrong here please feel free to email me. I always do my best to provide well researched information but of course it is subject to my beliefs and prior knowledge or lack thereof. I enjoy sharing this with you and we will see you this weekend! Aloha, Jess







 

 

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