BONE BROTH BENEFITS

For most of us the the thought of throwing in a heap of bones into a slow cooker, leaving it simmer for 24 hours, and then drinking it, sounds a little gross. Well at least it did for me. But then I opened my mind and experienced the benefits and never looked back!
What is bone broth? It’s a traditional process that places on emphasis on preparing and eating from nose to tail, the whole animal. Broths, stocks and bone broths have been used around the globe throughout history for babies and young children, in Asian households using fish bones and broth and in Europe broth is used in soups, stews and preparing sauces.

“Bone” is alive, it is a living tissue. We often think of bone as a hard, strong, calcium filled structure and somewhat dead! But this is not the case! Bone is in fact rigid but at the same time slightly elastic due to collagen and it is an organ making it very much alive and up there with the other organ super foods like liver, heart, brain, kidney and sweetbreads. “Broth” is the liquid or in this case gel-like liquid that occurs as a result of simmering bones in water.

Bone broths are typically simmered on low for a long period (greater than 20 hours) which encourages extraction of minerals, nutrients and other important components of the bone and joint structure. The end product should be a nutrient dense gel-like liquid and bones that crumble when pressed lightly between your fingers.

Why should you consume it regularly?

“Modern nutritional research continues to prove what traditional cultures learned through observation over time, when we eat a specific part of an animal, it nourishes that same part of our body”. For example the highest source of Vitamin A is not broccoli or carrot but rather the tissue in the back of an eyeball. Vitamin A is specifically known to be crucial to support eyesight, amongst many other roles. Keep this concept in mind when considering the below points.

Bone Marrow:

Bone marrow is where the body manufactures red and white blood cells. It’s the fatty, slimy part that contains protein and loads of minerals. Bone marrow plays a crucial role in the immune system and in bone health.

Collagen and gelatin:

Collagen is the protein matrix in bones, tendons, ligaments, skin, arteries, hair and just about everywhere and is broken down by cooking into another protein called gelatin. Gelatin as the name suggests gives the jelly like appearance. These proteins provide your body with the raw material to help support and rebuild your connective tissue. The health of your joints depends on the health of the collagen in your ligaments, tendons and on the ends of your bones. It pays to start looking after your joints early as the number of people who undergo preventable knee, hip replacements is astonishing. Skin, hair and nails, just like gelatin, is made of collagen. Gelatin-rich broths help build connective tissue, which makes skin smoother (less cellulite, fewer wrinkles) and healthier. Gelatin may also have benefits for healing and supporting the gut lining.

Glycine (non-essential amino acids):

Stimulates the production on stomach acid which is very important as the stomach works optimally at an acidic PH. It also aids fat digestion in the small intestine. It plays an important role in liver detoxification and is important at balancing out the effects of excess methionine (present in muscle meats and eggs). Glycine is also precursor to the bodies own natural antioxidant, glutathione (we want plenty of this guy)!

Glycosaminoglycans:

Think Glucosamine, Chondroitin and Hyaluronic acid. Very special molecules found in bone and cartilage that help keep our joints healthy. Great for post injury, osteoarthritis or other causes on joint pain. And important for growing and supporting healthy joints. Broth is superior at delivering these components over supplemental tablets mainly because broth gives you the entire complex of cartilage components which affects absorption and utilisation in the body. Also the methods of extraction are far gentler than the destructive heat and pressure involved in the production of glucosamine tablets.

Calcium, Phosphorous, Magnesium, Sulphur, Potassium, Sodium, Iodine (fish bones)

Overall, the proteins found in bone broth exhibit overall anti-inflammatory action. This is why it has benefits in improving and treating osteoarthritis, leaky gut, joint pain and fatty liver. The strong anti-inflammatory effects of the proteins in broth is another reason why it can be used to aid recovery from injury and illness.

Personally I have seen the following improvements:

• stronger hair and nails
• reduced cellulite
• improvement in the appearance of my skin
• increased immunity
• improved digestion
• quicker recovery from training

It is my go to food when:

• I feel I am getting a virus
• One time when I got diarrhoea from something I had eaten
• When I am stressed and my digestion plays havoc
• To aid healing (cuts, grazes, when I slammed my finger in the door)
• When Jan feels a cold sore starting
• To reduce sunburn (although interesting fact is that since eating a anti-inflammatory diet I don’t get sunburnt very much and if I do my recovery is so much quicker)

And its a staple in our diet to balance out the effects of eating lean muscle meats along with eating more nose to tail.
– I have read and know stories of people who have healed broken bones remarkable quickly through consuming broth daily. 

Recipe

Based on using a 6.5L slow cooker

Ingredients

2kg Bones (Marrow, chicken backs, beef knuckles, chicken feet, lamb necks, hooves)
Note: It will come back to quality! Use only bones that come from well-raised, well-fed animals. We use marrow bones from grass fed cows from Master butchers.
1/2 cup of Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar (aids in the extraction of minerals)
1/4 cup of sea powder (source of sea minerals, namely iodine)
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
2 tsp tumeric, or 2cm of fresh, minced
3cm ginger, minced
fresh herbs of choice
salt and pepper

Method

1. Add bones to slow cooker.
2. Add apple cider vinegar and allow to sit for 20 mins with the lid on.
3. Through all other ingredients in.
4. Add filtered water, enough to cover the bones but about 1-2 cm below the top of the slow cooker to avoid spillage.
5. Allow to simmer for 20 hours.

Once you have switched the broth off. You will need to remove the bones from the broth with a pair of tongs and place into the bin.
Then use a ladle and strainer to strain the liquid from the vegetables and other parts into a glass container. You can eat the vegetables or use them for making something else however in my experience they are tasteless as they have leached most of there nutrients into the broth so I don’t enjoy them. ( I am happy to hear suggestions).

Place lid on glass container and place into the fridge for 8 hours.

A solid layer of tallow will form on the top. This can be removed and thrown out or used like butter for cooking.

You should be left with a gelatinous broth to consume as stock, to add to cooking dishes, to add to smoothies, or to heat up on the stove top (NOT microwave) and enjoy as a hot drink.

How to strain bone broth below!

I like to drink my broth straight as a snack or as a add on to my meal. I particularly like it for breakfast with an egg and veggie scramble mix.
I hope this article will encourage you to drink bone broth regularly.

Love Chantel

HEALING YOURSELF – ARE YOU CONFUSED WHERE TO START?

The bacteria in our gut are a hot topic at present and this post will hopefully help you to understand why!

It’s quite ironic for me to be writing about this topic as I can remember being fresh out of my pharmacy degree (and thinking I knew everything) and on a mission to improve by skin (namely eczema and pimples). At a loss with pharmaceuticals I travelled three hours to see a naturopath who endeavoured to tell me in order to fix my skin I should work on healing my gut.

I remember thinking “Oh my god, I’ve wasted another few hundred dollars on this quack.” But burnt out and desperate I took her advice and ended up with a very expensive cocktail of potions. After six months with no improvements I threw them all out.

I now know that her intention with healing my gut was 100% accurate but her suggested execution was all wrong. No pill, potion or combination of both will magically fix you. It might mask your symptom or marginally improve your current situation or in my case it might do jack all but eventually you will end up right back at square one or worse off!

So before I tell you how I healed my gut and fixed my skin without pills, creams or any magic bullets let’s see what this gut business is all about.

Hippocrates over 2000 years ago said, “All disease begins in the gut – “

So this got me thinking, was he a quack too or is there more to this gut thing?

Did you know?

• The gut contains over 100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion) microorganisms? And together those microbes have 100 times more genes than the human genome. Therefore, we are actually more microbe than human. Pretty crazy huh? So common sense would say that these microorganisms are somewhat important and have a pretty big job.

• The gut acts as a gatekeeper. What does this mean? Well like a “good” gatekeeper it is designed to keep certain things from getting through the gate.

• We need healthy and diverse microbiota so they can; break down harmful components that we ingest, synthesise vitamins and aid absorption of minerals like iron, calcium and magnesium. Gut microbes determine how we process and what we get from the food we eat. So ultimately it pays to keep them healthy.

• The gut is home to 70% of our immune tissue, so simply if our gut is sick we get sick!

• The microbes in our gut are responsible for hormone conversion and production. So you want your little guys to be functioning well!

So what can go wrong with this enormously important ecosystem within us?

• Well when the gatekeeper gets sloppy, he starts letting the riffraff in. The riffraff is in the form of large protein molecules and the process of this sloppiness is otherwise referred to as increased intestinal barrier permeability or “Leaky Gut”. Since the large proteins were never meant to get in the body sees them as foreign invaders and mounts an immune response to attack them. Studies show that these immune responses to foreign protein molecules is at the heart of all autoimmune diseases, like Hashimoto thyroiditis and Celiac disease.

• When your immune system is so busy attacking these foreign invaders it has nothing left to fend off actual harmful viruses, bacteria and parasites and therefore you get sick more often. You also become prone to food allergies and end up in a state of chronic inflammation.

• But that’s not all, if we can remember Hippocrates wise words, that all disease begins in the gut, intestinal permeability may also present as skin conditions like eczema, acne, anxiety and depression, fatigue, joint pain, allergies, abdominal pain, gas and bloating, poor immune function and difficulty concentrating.

And guess what makes the Gatekeeper sloppy? Societies most commonly exposed to commodities and stress, yep it’s that word again!

• A diet high in refined flours, sugars and vegetable oils
• Alcohol
• Medications like antibiotics, NSAIDS, proton pump inhibitors
• Environmental toxins like BPA
• Chronic stress

Although I did not knowingly set out to improve my skin this way, the progressive steps I were making were in fact healing my gut and overall systemic inflammation and in turn my skin. So here it is – I am the quack telling you, you need to fix your gut if you want clear, glowing skin. No pills, no creams, no extra costs!

Here is where to start

1/ MANAGE STRESS. The most important thing that everyone talks about and no one does. Chronic stress can lead to bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine (these little guys should be predominantly in the large intestine), inflammation and intestinal permeability.

I could write a whole blog, god a whole book, on the ways stress wreaks absolutely havoc on health. Dealing with it, is the hardest thing to get people to do. And there are multiple steps. One of the biggest bang for your buck is meditation. Stay with me, I can feel you raising your eyebrows.

Like most things that are uncomfortable it takes practice before it feels normal. But once you start feeling the benefits it makes you want to keep going, kind of like exercise and yoga . I listen to Melissa Ambrosini’s guided meditations on my iPhone. I usually do this at the beach. It is 12 minutes of listening to calming noises and her voice. It heavily focusses on breathing, shutting out all the external thoughts, and just listing to her positiveness. The benefits of meditation are plentiful from improving productivity and focus, improving sleep, reducing blood pressure, reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression and more.

2/ REMOVE FOODS THAT WREAK HAVOC IN YOUR GUT. The big three – refined sugar, grains and vegetables oils. As I have mentioned before, trust me that you are eating them you just don’t know about it. They are in every packaged food, in every restaurant or eatery and in particular in your “healthy” breakfast muesli. You will need to be willing to make a lifestyle shift to a more whole foods primal way of living if you want to get serious about removing these.

3/ EAT MORE FERMENTED FOODS. These are the superior and cheapest probiotics. Fermented foods are hard to find in our area so you will probably have to make them yourself. Which is actually really fun and rewarding. This includes and is not limited to – kefir, sauerkraut, kombucha and beet kvass to name a few. Kefir is by far the easiest and simplest (watch video here).

4/ EAT MICROBIOTA ACCESSIBLE CARBOHYDRATES: This feeds your gut bacteria. Its one thing to introduce them but we also need to make sure they stay. Eg. potato, boiled and cooled white rice.

5/ CONSUME BONE BROTH. It is rich in glycine and gelatin both of which are helpful at restoring the integrity of the gut barrier. I consume at least half to one cup a day. To start brewing your own, here is a recipe I created.

6/ REMOVE THE TOXINS ON YOUR SKIN. If you are anything like me I was cleansing, toning, moisturising, priming, one coat of foundation second coat of powder and wait where is the bronzer, ok, finally ready to leave the house. Jesus how exhausting. Not to mention the amount of rubbish I was putting onto and into my body. And that was just my face. I have to admit that the removal of these things was harder than I expected – I had many ugly days and days where I felt very naked. Luckily I have an extraordinary partner to tell me how beautiful I am everyday so this definitely helped. The removal of all these products feels now more like freedom. I have more time to get on with my day, I actually feel more like myself and see my beauty from a different eye and ultimately my skin has dramatically improved. Probably because it can finally breath. And my bank account is better off.

A beautiful brand of skin care I have discovered is Annmarie Gianni Skin Care from the states that ship to Australia. Check their product range out if you are looking to convert to more natural ingredients.

7/ TAKE A HIGH QUALITY FERMENTED COD LIVER OIL. Fermented cod liver oil contains vitamins A, D and K2 in addition to EPA and DHA, and is important for cell growth and reducing overall inflammation. I like the Rosita brand.

So there you have it – no contraceptive pill, no antibiotics, no expensive creams, no laser surgery. Just all nat-ur-al! Things aren’t perfect but I’m confident I am fixing things from the inside out and for good.

Love Chantel