The Healing Benefits of Bone Broth

For the last few weeks I have been researching the healing power of Bone Broth. I read Sally Falloon’s book Nourishing Broth: An Old-Fashioned Remedy for the Modern World, which is a great book.

The benefits are amazing:

1. Heals leaky gut

It's good for the non-leaky gut as well, the gelatin in the broth helps fill the holes in the gut. It helps with other digestive disorders as well. Leaky gut can stem from systemic candida.

2. Protects your Joints

The chondroitin sulfate, glutamine, and other compounds in bone broth have been shown to help prevent osteoarthritis and are great for your joint care.

3. Immune Support

The amino acids in the broth of glycine, arginine, and proline help fight inflammation and inhibit infection. Chicken soup is more than just healing your soul.

4. Stronger Bones

The calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous are great for your bones.

5. Sleep better

The glycine will help you sleep better and help with your memory.

6. Healthy Hair, Skin, and Nails

The collagen in the cartilage helps with your skin, hair, and nails, helping you to look younger.

7. Helps with Cancer, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Sports and Fitness

My issue was trying to source bones from grass-fed cows that weren’t going to cost a ton. Finally, I realized most cows are grass-fed in NZ so I managed to get a huge bag of bones for $1.99.

The ideal parts of a cow are the knucklebones, any bones with a lot of cartilage or marrow.

Chickens are also good if they are grass-fed, ideally, you want the feet, backs, and necks, but the whole carcass will do if it's leftover from a meal.

Fish heads can be used also.

You can combine bones in a broth from different animals as well.

I have made 3 batches so far, experimenting with the taste and length of time that I have it cooking in the slow cooker.

In the first batch I put in too much water, I filled the slow cooker to the top, but ideally, you just want enough water to cover the bones. I put the veggies in at the beginning and it gives off an awful burnt smell while cooking. I used just random beef bones, ones you would give a dog. I cooked for 24 hours.

If you find you use too much water and it doesn’t gel, you can still use it, there’s still goodness in the broth.

In the second batch I put in less water and it came out with a nice consistency but I didn’t learn about the veggies till after I did this batch. Ideally, you want to put the veggies in the last 8 hours. I cooked this batch for 36 hours. It had a nice gelatinous wobble to it. I used the same type of bones in batch one.

In the third batch I bought knucklebones. Someone suggested afterward I get the butcher to saw them in half. There’s quite a bit of marrow in knucklebones. I cooked for 31 hours and didn’t put in any veggies. This would have to be the best consistency yet.

Next, I will try chicken feet. I’m a bit weary because in order to get enough feet you have to buy a lot, and I’m not sure if the chickens have been grain-fed.

It’s been too soon to tell the effects as I’ve had a lot of changes in the last week, but what I will say is I’m really tired, sleeping a lot more, and I know the glycine is doing that. My stomach has been gurgling a lot more lately too. I’m also experiencing detox symptoms.

So go easy how much you drink. I am drinking 2 cups a day. I heat it up in a saucepan on the stove. Ideally don’t use a microwave to heat it up.

Recipe:

Bones depending how big your slow cooker or saucepan is. Soak them in a bowl of water, enough to cover them, and put in half a cup of apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice if you don’t have ACV. This helps leach the minerals out of the bones. Then I put them in the oven to brown for around 20 minutes. Some people don’t do this step. I put the water from soaking the bones in the slow cooker.

Any veggies, I threw in carrots, garlic, broccoli stems, celery. You could put in onions or leeks or even just use your leftover scraps from veggies in the week. Put them in 8 hours before the end. There is talk that if you put them in too early they soak up the minerals.

Slow cook for as long as you like from 1–5 days. You may need to skim off the layer of crud off the top, I never did. Or you may need to top up the water if you go for quite a few days.

When you're done, strain off the bones and veggies and I throw them on my garden for the birds to eat. Leave in a bowl to cool at room temperature, and then tip into the containers you want to store the broth in, and put in the fridge. The fat will rise to the top, you can scoop this off when it's hardened, and either use it for cooking or feed it to your animals or throw it out.

The broth lasts for around 5 days in the fridge so I freeze some of mine.

Let me know how you get on if you make it or if you have any questions.

(Since writing this article you can now buy bone broth powder or liquid, ready-made, which I prefer to do)

Kate Strong is an Intuitive/Healer and specializes in soul healings, the emotion code, body code, cord-cutting, past life healings, ancestral healings and she writes courses. Ask her about how to get wholesale prices for Essential Oils.

She also likes to blog about lots of different topics on mind, body, spirit.

You can find her at https://www.katestrong.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter.