Bone Broth...

Often, in movies that are set in days gone by, if someone is an invalid and bedridden, a caregiver can be seen carefully feeding broth to the invalid.  For instance, in "Little Women," Jo says to Beth, who is very ill, "Drink up all this good broth."

I never understood that until just the last year or so.  It made no sense to me why some watery soup would be considered nourishment.  Now I understand.  In the past, family cooks understood the importance of broth made properly with bones.  Not only are properly prepared stocks and broths delicious and versatile additions to soups, stews and sauces, they have important health benefits.

In Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, there is an excellent article on the benefits of "Stocks."  I will not quote the whole article here, but will just list a few things that are mentioned.

1. "...the use of homemade meat broths to produce nourishing and flavorful soups and sauces has almost completely disappeared from the American culinary tradition."

2." Properly prepared, meat stocks are extremely nutritious, containing the minerals of bone, cartilage, marrow..."

3. "Acidic wine or vinegar added during cooking helps to draw minerals, particularly calcium, magnesium and potassium, into the broth."

4. "...stock is also of great value because it supplies hydrophilic colloids to the diet... Gelatin acts first and foremost as an aid to digestion and has been used successfully in the treatment of many initestinal disorders, including hyperacidity, colitis and Crohn's disease.  Although gelatin is by no means a complete protein... it acts as a protein sparer, allowing the body to more fully utilize the complete proteins that are taken in.  Gelatin rich broths are a must for those who cannot afford large amounts of meat in their diets."

The article goes on to explain a number of other health benefits of properly prepared bone broth.  So, how can it be "properly" prepared?  Here is how I do it.  Do you recall that last week I ended up with the bones, etc. of 6 roosters that we butchered?  I stuffed all of the bones into my 2 gallon soup pot, covered them with filtered water and added 1/2 cup of raw apple cider vinegar.  I simmered it for about 24 hours, let it cool, strained it through a cotton cloth and refrigerated it.

Here is a picture of what it looked like when I took it out of the refrigerator:

You can see the lovely gelatinous consistency of it, as I am ladling it there.  

We drank some with our breakfast, some is in the fridge and I pressure canned 3 quarts for later.  Sometimes I freeze broth and stocks, but not this time.  Here is a picture of this morning's breakfast... warm, salted chicken bone broth, hard boiled eggs (still warm - so nice!), goat milk and goat milk kefir.  We both used Realsalt in our broth, to taste.  If you are not familiar with unrefined sea salt, please go to that link and see how good for you it can be!

Yes, I do pull back the table cloth when we eat.  Sigh... ;)

This post is linked to the Homemaker Hop #5