Bone broth is a dietary mainstay for gut health.
It provides not only minerals and vitamins but also soothing collagen to strengthen the gut wall. Broth makes for a healthy addition to your "menu du jour," especially during chilly winter months.
Make Sure No Cook Spoils the Broth
Try this simple recipe* so you can get your sumptuous broth just right.
• Cover in water a combination (neck/spine/leg/knuckle) of chicken, beef, lamb, venison, or fish bones. If you have a chicken foot, animal hoof, or deer antler, throw that in, too, for extra goodness!
• Add a good splash of apple cider vinegar (organic, raw not required).
Let sit about an hour, so the vinegar can draw calcium from the bones. Then simmer (not boil) on stove or in crock pot for 12 to 72 hours. Lid must be tight-fitting. Strain broth, keeping meat bits for soup. Add to broth any marrow removed from tubular bones, and chill.
When using the broth, include some or all of the fat which rises to the top when cooled. Or use this hardened fat for making soap, candles, or bird food.
A cup of warmed broth doctored with a splash of sea salt, pepper, and perhaps some garlic powder can replace coffee or tea as a morning starter. Add a raw egg yolk (it cooks in the hot broth) for extra nutrition. You can also use the broth as a soup or stew base in place of water. Or cook rice in it.
Bone Scan
Finding bones for your broth can be a challenge. Being near the source (i.e., in the boonies) helps but is not necessary. Here are some ideas to guide your search wherever you are.
1) Always use whatever bones come from the meat you buy. If your family eats chicken (or whatever) off the bone, SAVE the bones from everyone's plate and use them, too (don't worry, they'll get sterilized during the long simmer time).
2) Ask the butchers at the grocery stores. You can buy buy bones at some grocery stores (such as Whole Foods), but they tend to be expensive that way.
3) Visit your neighboring rural area where you may find a local meat processor. That's your best bet for bones. Often, they're free or super cheap, because most people who bring animals to be processed don't know the secret about bone broth and so don't want the bones. (Or the organ meats—while you're at it, find out if the animals were grass-fed and ask for the organs, too!)
4) Ask your local Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader for a food resource list. Track down folks selling grass-fed beef, lamb, pork, etc., and ask those farmers to tell folks who buy meat from them that you'd love to have any bones the people who don't want them. Also ask around CSA's who are often good links to healthy-raised meats.
5) Put up a sign at hunter check-in stations saying that you'd like bones from the deer hunters butcher at home. We ask for deer from anyone who doesn't want to keep theirs, so we butcher them and keep the meat AND the bones! You can also advertise this in local, rural papers.
6) Look on Craig's List, or post your request there.
7) In town, look for an Asian fresh foods market. In particular, ask for the fish fins, bones and heads. Fish broth is the best of the best because of all the nutrients seafood brings to the broth.
So, bone up on this great way to stir more nutrition into your diet!
*See Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats (page 12) for more information and recipes for bone broth.
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