Real Food Friday Feast - How to make bone broth

I've talked about bone broth in a few of my Real Food Friday Feast blog posts like butternut soup, chicken curry and pea soup. I've also mentioned it in blogs that focus a lot on nutritional health and building the immune system up naturally. I explained how to make it in my blog on butternut soup but I have never actually dedicated a blog post to it and I decided it was time I did that so that it would be easier to find for those who haven't been following my blog from the beginning.

Some of you are wondering why I'd even devote a whole post to something as unexciting as bone broth. Well, in my opinion, bone broth is something pretty exciting actually! In fact, if I don't have some available in my freezer, I panic. It's an essential ingredient in just about everything that I cook. As you can see from the recipes that I have posted, that use bone broth, it works especially well in things like soups and curries because bone broth is, essentially, stock and stock adds flavour to those kinds of meals.

But stock isn't there to just add flavour, or it shouldn't be. Unfortunately, the stock that you buy from a grocery store does just that and nothing else. There is NO goodness to be found in the majority of them. In fact, it would be the opposite of that. Store-bought stock cubes are generally loaded up with allergens like dairy, wheat, yeast, gluten and celery, for starters. To make it more complicated, they also contain sugar (read high fructose corn syrup), salt (Not the good kind), maize starch, vegetable fat, artificial flavourants (which you should avoid at all costs), MSG and let's not forget, preservatives. There ARE some organic stock cubes out there, but you still can't beat bone broth when it comes to nutritious value and it's so much cheaper to make.

If you are going to make a nice, healthy chicken curry with free-range chicken, and you are going to use a conventional stock cube to add some flavour, you are going to take your nutrient-dense, healthy meal and turn it into something toxic. Why would you want to do that when bone broth is literally right at your fingertips and so easy to make?

Interestingly, bone broth used to be considered a poor man's food because it's pretty cheap to make. All you need are bones and the result is a very nutritious, cheap meal. People don't realise just how nutritious it actually is. Just a few things that broth will improve are:

• Digestion
• Allergies
• Immune health
• Brain health
• Joint pain
• Bone formation, growth and repair
• Hair, skin and nails

Bone broth contains loads of valuable nutrients which all help with the development of healthy joints, bones, ligaments and tendons as well as hair and skin. It's actually considered beauty food because all the nutrients it contains help the body with proper structural alignment and beautiful skin and hair. The nutrients you'll get from bone broth are:

• Collagen
• Gelatin
• Hyaluronic acid
• Chondroitin sulfate
• Glycosamino glycans
• Proline
• Glycine
• Calcium
• Phosphorus
• Magnesium
• Potassium

Proline and glycine are vital for healthy connective tissue (ligaments, joints, around organs, etc) Here's something that will get ALL women boiling up their own bone broth: It can help reduce cellulite because it improves connective tissue! It also increases hair growth/strength, improves your digestive issues and remineralises your teeth. I think I may have had you at cellulite though;)

The Paleo Mom has a great explanation for the importance of these two amino acids:

“Glycine is required for synthesis of DNA, RNA and many proteins in the body. As such, it plays extensive roles in digestive health, proper functioning of the nervous system and in wound healing. Glycine aids digestion by helping to regulate the synthesis of bile salts and secretion of gastric acid. It is involved in detoxification and is required for production of glutathione, an important antioxidant. Glycine helps regulate blood sugar levels by controlling gluconeogenesis (the manufacture of glucose from proteins in the liver). Glycine also enhances muscle repair/growth by increasing levels of creatine and regulating Human Growth Hormone secretion from the pituitary gland. This wonderful amino acid is also critical for healthy functioning of the central nervous system. In the brain, it inhibits excitatory neurotransmitters, thus producing a calming effect. Glycine is also converted into the neurotransmitter serine, which promotes mental alertness, improves memory, boosts mood, and reduces stress. Proline has an additional role in reversing atherosclerotic deposits. It enables the blood vessel walls to release cholesterol buildups into your blood stream, decreasing the size of potential blockages in your heart and the surrounding blood vessels. Proline also helps your body break down proteins for use in creating new, healthy muscle cells.”

Sounding like something you'd like in your diet? Well, it's SO cheap and easy to make you'll wonder what took you so long! All you need is a big pot filled with water, some vinegar and a pile of bones! Let's get a bit more specific though;)

Bone Broth Recipe

A large pot
Water
Approximately 1kg bones (this really isn't a big issue. You can just make less by using less water)
2 tablespoons of vinegar (preferably apple cider vinegar) or lemon juice (Try and go with juice straight out of a lemon or something that has no preservatives. You don't want to add any to your healthy bone broth)
Herbs (optional)
Salt (optional)

Method

• Throw all the bones into the pot
• Fill the pot with water stopping about 4 or 5 centimetres from the top
• Add the vinegar
• Add herbs and salt
• Bring the water to boil and then turn down to a very gentle simmer
• Leave for approx. 8-24hrs (this is up to you but I prefer to give them lots of time)
• Strain liquid through colander and decant into small containers
• Freeze or use as needed

This all works even better if you have a slow cooker. I throw everything into my slow cooker and go about my day and night and forget about it. After 24hrs it's all good to go and there is no mess on the stove top!

Why the vinegar? It's an essential part of the mix because it helps to coax all the minerals out of the bones a bit more. As I said above, you can use lemon juice as well.

In case you're wondering where I get the bones from, well, this part is really easy. I save them over the course of a few weeks. Every time we eat any meat with bones, we put all the leftover bones into a container in the freezer. Once I have enough, it's time to make broth. I also buy a bag of free range mutton bones from The Windmill and I add one or two of those, raw, to the mix.  If you are vegetarian, and don't have any bones to collect, just buy a bag of marrow bones and use those. The more variety you have, the better. Even fish bones will work but it's not my favourite. However, if you want to make fish curry, a fish broth is handy!

It's very important to remember that the quality of your bone broth is only going to be as good as the quality of the bones you use. They MUST be from free range, grass-fed, healthy animals. The reason is, conventionally raised animals are fed a diet of genetically modified grains, loaded with pesticides and herbicides and other chemicals and heavy metals. They are also fed hormones and antibiotics. The body naturally stores these toxins in the fatty portions of the bone so that is what you will be consuming in your bone broth if you use conventional meat.

The recipe above is just for your basic bone broth, but feel free to get a little more adventurous with yours by all means. As I said, you CAN add herbs and salt for flavour. That means that, when you cook with it, you won't really need to add anything else. I often add a bit of masala because we eat so much curry;) If you only have normal table salt in your cupboards, please banish it NOW and get some sea salt or himalayan rock salt and use that instead. It's sold at Pick n Pay's, Spars, Dischems etc so there is no excuse and it's so much better for you. Read here to find out why.

As I said above, I prefer to leave mine to simmer for as long possible. Reason being that it REALLY gets everything out of the bones. You will see the bones, particularly the chicken bones, start to turn a bit lighter the longer they simmer, the water turns darker and that's how you know it's working. The longer you leave them, the more nutritious it is going to be. Once it's done, I drain it and then, using a soup ladle, I fill up several containers and freeze them. Another option is to freeze it in ice trays and have your own real food stock cubes to pop into a dish without even having to defrost them.

When you defrost them you will see that it looks quite gelatinous. That's a good thing. That's what's so good for you and it gives your meals a deliciously meaty flavour.

For those of you who are veggies or vegans and really don't want to use any bones, you can ALSO make broth. It just won't be BONE broth, it'll be a veggie broth and it's also good for you but it doesn't contain the amino acids that you get from meat, as well as the various minerals. However, vegetables are loaded with nutrients and, leaving them to simmer for hours will fill the water they cook in, with all of those nutrients. Use the same recipe as above but obviously replace the bones with all sorts of different coloured vegetables. I wouldn't leave it as long because veggies aren't as tough as bones!

I can say that bone broth has done wonders for me when I've been sick with a cold or flu and, if I have a particularly tough mountain bike ride or gym workout, a few mugs of bone broth fix me up very quickly. It's also just a great daily tonic, especially if you have achy joints or a compromised immune system. It's wonderful stuff. It also makes ALL my meals taste good with very little effort. My wife thinks I'm a great cook and I'm happy to leave her thinking that;)

You probably won't use it so much to cook during the summer months but I would still advise getting at least some of it in your diet. You really will benefit hugely from it!