As I’ve studied and learned more and more about the gut, leaky gut, and the role that our digestion and gut play in our overall health, I’ve come to realize that daily doses of probiotic or fermented foods are key to maintaining a healthy balance and promote overall wellness. Adding probiotic foods to benefit the strengthening of the gut has been one of the reasons that I’ve focused on understanding bone broth benefits.
There is a lot of hoop-la about bone broth benefits via social media, etc.. The information is out there, but I wanted to put it all together in a nut shell for the average person who is trying to improve their health and benefit their family. Recipes vary, and information is prolific, but the bottom line is the same…bone broth benefits are key to regaining and maintaining a healthy gut which leads to overall good health.
Bone Broth Benefits: Gut Support
I think that the most important benefits to bone broth is its ability to strengthen the immune system and detox the gut. In doing this, it also supports healthy digestion which is the key to repairing and restoring the gut lining. When the gut lining is torn due to sugars, over use of antibiotics, chemicals, harmful foods, toxins, pesticides, medications, vaccines, and unhealthy habits, it leads to inflammation not only in the gut but can inflame other parts of the body as well like the joints or the brain. Since Hippocrates said “all disease begins in the gut” it has been further discovered by medical scientists that your health is in large part dependent on the health of your intestinal tract. Many of our modern diseases appear to be rooted in an unbalanced mix of microorganisms in your digestive system, courtesy of an inappropriate and unbalanced diet that is too high in sugars and too low in healthful fats and beneficial bacteria. Because of this imbalance of micro organisms in our guts, we lose the beneficial bacterias and we become low in healthy fats that keep our health in balance. This in turn has led to the root of many of the diseases we deal with today.
Bone Broth Benefits: Minerals
Correcting gut deficiencies and repairing the gut lining can allow healing the gut to relieve heartburn and intestinal inflammations. Bone broth benefits the gut to avoid the destruction that leads to disease as well as promoting recovery from disease. The mineral richness of bones brings benefit because minerals are key to aiding our bodies and restoring good health. By pulling the beneficial minerals from the bones in the bone broth with the use of an acid like apple cider vinegar, the minerals from bone broth come in a form that our bodies can easily absorb in a format that the body understands. Minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus (which also help to strengthen our bones, aid them in growth and repair), silicon, sulphur and other important trace minerals are key to a healthy gut and body.
Bone Broth Benefits: Collagen
The collagen in the joints, marrow, skin, tendons, ligaments and cartilage of the bones and the chicken feet, for example, to strengthen our own tendons, joints, ligaments, bone, and skin is also a bone broth benefit. Collagen is a protein molecule that has two important amino acids named glycine and proline. Proline is important for collagen to form and glycine increases the secretion of gastric acid and helps to improve digestion.The collagen in bone broth benefits us by supporting our skin, making it soft yet strong, and helps alleviate the appearance of cellulite.
Bone Broth Benefits: Gelatin
Collagen and the gelatin in provides (gelatin is simply cooked collagen) have been shown to benefit gastric ulcers by healing the lining of our digestive tract which also means that it is helping reduce the inflammation in the intestines as well as the stomach and esophagus as in reflux disease (GERD). Other things that are created by the breakdown in the beneficial bone broth collagen are things like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, which are known for their benefit to ligaments and tendons and recommended for people with arthritis and joint pain. They are also huge in helping people with ulcerative colitis and crohn’s disease which can many times stem from a deficiency of these gut healers. Most women are already aware of the benefits of gelatin to their hair and nails!
The benefit of gelatin (cooked collagen) was recognized by the French centuries ago a one of the most nutritious foods and was used in treating things such as peptic ulcers, diabetes, tuberculosis, muscle and infections diseases, jaundice, and even cancer. It was customary to add gelatin to an infants milk if they were having digestive issues. An American researcher named Francis Pottenger was able to find that gelatin actually attracts and maintains liquids which helps digestion because it is preparing our digestion by attracting the necessary digestive juices needed in our gut. Thus proving the ‘chicken soup‘ remedy from a scientific perspective.
Bone Broth Benefits: Amino Acids
Our western diet makes us most likely deficient in a host of the most necessary amino acids for proper function and healing. The following amino acids are naturally occurring in bone broth:
Arginine aids the liver by regenerating damaged cells, and is critical for healing wounds and boosting our immune systems.
Proline is an important compound that helps to regenerate cartilage, heal joints, repair tissue, make collagen, helps maintain good blood pressure, repair leaky gut, makes skin soft while reducing cellulite, and has been found to help prevent arteriosclerosis.
Glutamine, a protein amino acid building block to our body, is found in bone broth. Glutamine is important fuel for cell metabolism in the small intestine. It also stimulates new collagen growth which helps repair damaged joints, as well as reducing pain and inflammation.
Glycine is one of the smallest amino acids and is thought to be the one that helps the brain, builds muscles, and has overall benefits to the body. Other known benefits to glycine include preventing seizures, stroke, and other neurological/neurobehavioral disorders, stabilizing blood sugar, aiding the liver, improving sleep, and memory, producing digestive enzymes and reducing allergic and autoimmune reactions, and is a natural detoxifier of harmful toxic chemicals in our bodies. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, glycine has also been found to help lower symptoms in people who suffer from things including ulcers, arthritis, leaky gut syndrome, heart failure, chronic fatigue, and even certain cancers.
Of course, many of these above mentioned benefits can be taken in supplement form, but isn’t it cheaper and most likely healthier to get them through the natural source of bone broth?
As you can see, the benefits of bone broth are innumerable. The main things to know about making beef bone broth/stock or chicken stock bone broth is that the most benefit will come from using antibiotic free, hormone free, chemical free organic ingredients to receive the best that bone broth has to offer. You can buy the bones/meat fresh, or store an assortment of bones in the freezer until you are ready to use them. Be sure that any of the bigger bones that you have are cut into smaller pieces to allow for more material to become part of your bone broth.
The main ingredients to any bone broth are the bones, meat (if you choose), water, apple cider vinegar, sea salt, and vegetables if you so choose for extra added vitamin and mineral content. If using beef, more flavor is brought into the bone broth if you brown the meat prior to adding it to the water pot. A crock pot works best, as the longer and slower the cook, the more benefit can be pulled out of the bones.
Try bone broth today and add it to your daily menu in soups, stews, or as the base of any sauce. You can even enjoy a warm cup in the morning instead of coffee, or at night to calm you before bed.
Probiotic Beef Bone Broth Recipe Here
Chicken Stock Bone Broth Here
www.unmc.edu/publicrelations/media/press-kits/chicken-soup/research.html
www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/broth-is-beautiful
We made bone broth and it’s my new comfort drink! I’m so grateful for those who have gone before me to post such amazing info to improve my health. I love the Truth!
Isn’t it amazing? I love it in the morning to get my digestion started, and it’s great to calm me before bed each night too! I’m so glad you find comfort with it and enjoy it like I do!