Bone Broth: What’s so great about it?

  Our first nutrient dense must-have is bone broth. Why bone broth? Bone broth has so many incredible, healing nutrients within. The key players are Collagen, Gelatin, Glutamine, and other amino acids, and Glycosaminoglycans.

      Collagen is already a well known nutrient, gaining popularity in the mainstream, and for good reason! It’s the most abundant protein in the human body and in the animal kingdom. Collagen is what makes up the elasticity of your skin and muscles, and every other connective tissue in the body. Your body synthesizes its own endogenous collagen while relying on outside sources and nutrition to receive exogenous collagen, which helps repair body tissues. Nutrients that support the production of collagen within your body are proline, anthocyanidinis, vitamin C, copper, and vitamin A. Most of the collagen we need is endogenous, and produced by your body, but supplementation from foods, like bone broth, can help with that process as well as providing outside sources of it.

      Gelatin is the byproduct of collagen, when it is boiled or simmered. Chemically, they are extremely similar, but gelatin is the breakdown of collagen protein peptides into smaller protein peptides. Gelatin contains the essential amino acids of lysine and valine, as well as the conditional amino acids of glycine, proline, and arginine, which become essential when we are sick or stressed. Gelatin is a great source of protein, better than any protein powder on the market, by far. It aids in digestion, by promoting a healthy mucosal lining in the gut, as well as stimulating the production of gastric juices. The lysine found in gelatin helps absorb calcium into the bones, creating stronger bones. The glycine found in gelatin may improve sleep and is currently being studied to see if it might improve blood sugar control in people with type II diabetes. It may ease joint pain by helping to reduce inflammation in the body. And finally, it may play a role in controlling hormones associated with hunger, due to its high protein content and the nature of protein to signal ‘fulness’ or satiety. 

Homemade Gelatinous Bone Broth, 4 hours in the Instant Pot

Homemade Gelatinous Bone Broth, 4 hours in the Instant Pot

      We need to understand glutamine and what it does for us. Glutamine is an amino acid, classified as ‘conditionally essential’ [though not considered ‘essential’ it is highly effective in most bodily healing protocols]. It is an essential nutrient, even if not an ‘essential amino acid.’ It’s crucial for maintaining a healthy gut lining, which keeps your food, waste and chemicals from entering your bloodstream from your gut [leaky gut]. It’s also an essential nutrient in immune functioning, fuel for any cells to divide quickly, especially immune cells, and gut lining cells, helping your body to absorb more nutrients. There is more glutamine in your body than any other amino acid, and it’s a favorite protein for your brain. Some people are convinced that it helps allay sugar cravings, though there is no hard evidence to support this beyond the fact that eating more protein often leads to less need or desire for sugars, due to the alternative energy source. Foods that are high in protein are naturally high in extremely bioavailable glutamine, meat is going to be your best quality/quantity source, followed by fish, dairy, eggs, nuts, and beans. We will discuss bioavailability in a later post. 

      Amino acids are organic compounds that combine to make proteins. Your body needs these for the proper functioning of your organs. When proteins are broken down, amino acids are left, and they in turn help your body to build different essential proteins. Your body can produce it’s own amino acids, but there are some that it cannot synthesize, that we must get from outside sources—i.e. our food. These are called ‘essential amino acids,’ of which there are 9— histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Then there are ‘conditional amino acids’, meaning we only need them in times of sickness and stress—arginine, cysteine, glutamine, tyrosine, glycine, ornithine, proline, and serine. Finally, there are nonessential amino acids which our bodies produce, of their own accord, even when we are not getting them from our diets, those are—alanine, arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, proline, serine, and tyrosine.

How to Make it at Home:

Chicken bones often fully break down after one 3 hour session in the Instant Pot and beef bones can sometimes take up to 3! sessions to fully break down due to their size and thickness. I like to cook my bones until they can easily break at the thickest point with light pressure from my fingers, that’s when i know they’re used up.

I also love to mix bones i.e. use bones from all of our dinners throughout the week or put chicken in with cow, or chicken/cow/lamb, pork/lamb, etc. Variety is the spice of life & all that. I just think it produces a better, more complex flavor profile which is nice if you like to start your morning with salted, seasoned bone broth like I do. Plus, the different animals yield different nutrients, & balanced nourishment is the goal!

I always put a splash of Apple Cider Vinegar, [no more than a tablespoon in a 3 quart yield, otherwise that’s all you’ll taste] into the water with the bones because it’s supposed to help pull out the nutrients during cooking, I haven’t found a study to confirm this yet, but I figure, it doesn’t hurt. Never salt your bones before cooking though, as the salt concentration can become too extreme during cooking just salt to taste as you use it.

I have learned to roast my sustainably sourced, regeneratively raised beef bones at 375-400 for 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of the bones. I like to roast them until they are brown and crackly, because it adds great flavour to the broth. You can also add herbs or veggie scraps to your broth for added nutrition and flavour, however, these need just a fraction of the time and pressure to release their flavours and nutrients, so it’s best to make your broth without them and then add in your herbs at the end, and allow it to slow cook for 10-30 minutes. A better way to put it might be, your herbs will appreciate 5 minutes or so of a warm bath to release flavours, and your hardier veggie scraps will appreciate 10 + minutes, neither will appreciate being pressure cooked.