Because of the amazing health benefits of homemade broths, many of you who have my book (The IBD Remission Diet) know that I strongly advocate for people to drink meat and vegetable broths in between Absorb Plus shakes during the diet. It also stimulates the appetite: If you constantly only eat sweet flavors, you quickly feel full and you simply can’t bear the thought of another shake!
However, alternating sweet and salty flavors stimulates the appetite and makes it much easier to get the number of calories you need each day from Absorb Plus Elemental diet shakes.
For those of you who purchased the new Listen To Your Gut program, your free bonuses included a Healing Diet Recipe Book, and in this recipe book I give you all the recipes for making homemade broths. You can then use these stocks when making soups, stews, or gravies/sauces. Again, I did this partly for taste reasons, but mostly for health reasons.
Health Benefits of Homemade Broth
Traditional cultures around the world – from Jewish to Asian – have always used homemade broths as an integral part of their diet. Sally Fallon and Mary Enig have written a fantastic cookbook called Nourishing Traditions based on traditional/primitive food preparation techniques. If you are at the point in your healing journey where you are following the Minimize Gas and Bloating Diet or the Maintenance Diet, then I highly recommend you pick up this cookbook and start eating this way for optimal health. If your system has not yet healed to the point where you can continue with the diet to reduce diarrhea, it is too early for you to use the Nourishing Traditions cookbook. Until your system heals better, you cannot benefit from it. No matter what stage of healing you are at, you can certainly benefit tremendously from homemade broths.
As Sally Fallon writes in her article Broth is Beautiful:
“That’s why broth is a vital element in Asian cuisine – from the comforting, long-simmered beef broth in Korean soups to the flavorful fish broth that the Japanese start their days with. True Chinese food cannot exist without the ever-simmering stock pot. Bones and leftovers are tossed in and mineral-rich broth is discarded to moisten stir-fries. Broth-based soups are snack foods from Thailand to… Manchuria.”
Asian restaurants in the U.S. are likely to take shortcuts and use a powder base for sweet and sour soup or kung pau chicken, but in Japan, China, Korea and Thailand, mom-and-pop establishments make broth in steaming back rooms and sell it as soup in storefronts and on street corners.”
What’s in the bones?
Well, to be honest, the stock recipes in Nourishing Traditions are actually better than mine because they require more bones in the pot. They also make you add vinegar to remove the minerals from these bones. I like to use Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar (another health product) and you don’t have to worry about the acidity as the vinegar cooks off when cooking. As Sally Fallon points out in her article “Broth is Beautiful”:
“Farming societies still make broth. In cultures that do not use milk, this is a necessity because only broth made from bones and dairy products provides calcium in a form that the body can easily absorb. It is also a necessity when meat is a luxury item, because gelatin in properly prepared broth helps the body use proteins efficiently.”
The French were at the forefront of gelatin research, which continued until the 1950s. Gelatin has been found to be useful in treating a long list of diseases, including stomach ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle disorders, infectious diseases, jaundice and cancer. Babies had fewer digestive problems when gelatin was added to their milk. American researcher Francis Pottenger pointed out that because gelatin is a hydrophilic colloid, meaning it attracts and holds liquids, it facilitates digestion by attracting digestive juices to food in the intestines.
Science confirms what our grandmothers knew. Rich homemade chicken broths help with colds. Broth contains minerals in a form that the body can easily absorb – not only calcium, but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulfur and trace elements. It contains broken down material from cartilage and tendons – substances such as chondroitin sulfates and glucosamine, which are now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.
According to traditional tradition, fish broth helps boys grow into strong men, eases childbirth, and cures fatigue. “Fish broth cures everything” is another South American saying. Broth and soup made from fish heads and carcasses provide iodine and thyroid-strengthening substances.
When the broth is cooled, it solidifies due to the gelatin. The use of gelatin as a therapeutic agent dates back to the ancient Chinese. Gelatine was probably the first functional food and dates back to the invention of the “digester” by the Frenchman Papin in 1682. Papin’s digestive apparatus consisted of a device for cooking bones or meat with steam to extract the gelatin. Just as vitamins are the focus of nutritional research today, gelatin was at the forefront of food research two hundred years ago. Gelatin was widely considered a highly nutritious food, particularly by the French, who were looking for ways to feed their armies and large numbers of homeless people in Paris and other cities. Although gelatin is not a complete protein and only contains the amino acids arginine and glycine in large quantities, it acts as a protein saver and helps the poor turn a few pieces of meat into a complete meal. During the siege of Paris, when vegetables and meat were in short supply, a doctor named Guerard gave his patients gelatin broth with a little added fat and they survived in good health.”
If you want to make your own homemade broths, you can use either Sally’s recipes (in her article) or mine. If using mine, add additional bones (and feet if possible) plus 1 tbsp. Bragg’s apple cider vinegar to every one of my recipes.
Another reason to consume bone broths
In his article about the benefits of MSM (the benefits come from the sulfur), Dr. Joe Mercola has another reason to consume bone broths:
“Ideally, the best way to meet your sulfur needs is through the food you eat. However, this can be a bit of a challenge these days. There has been a move away from many traditional foods that were the big sources of sulfur, like collagen or keratin, which we just don’t eat as much these days. You may be able to get enough if you boil bones from organically raised animals into bone broth and drink the broth regularly (or use it in soups and stews). The connective tissue is already rich in sulfur, and if you As the bones slowly cook, these nutrients dissolve out of the bones and into the water.”
CHICKEN BROTH RECIPE – An easy way to get started
I know that cooking organic, unprocessed food from scratch takes a lot more time than the way all your friends and neighbors eat! But it is so important to your healing. If you can’t find time to prepare it yourself, ask a family member to help. Or advertise on Craigslist for a personal chef to come in once a month and cook a few different broths for you. There are now a number of companies that offer high-quality bone broths online.
You can also quickly turn this broth into a meal for yourself or the kids by adding rice ramen noodles or egg noodles and a spoonful of dried vegetables (buy these at your local health food store) and you’re done! A super healthy meal in about 5 minutes.
So if you’re looking for the quickest way to make chicken stock, you’ll find it here. You can purchase organic chicken necks and backs either from your local grocer. Or you can buy your chicken breasts, thighs, etc. “bone-in” and remove the bones after cooking as usual.
- Take raw or cooked organic chicken bones, back and neck and place them in a large pot. Fill the pot with filtered water to 1 inch above the rim. Add 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar.
- Chop up a few carrots and two stalks of celery and throw them into the pot. Bring to a boil.
- Cover and simmer for as long as possible – between 2 and 12 hours. If slime/foam forms on the surface, skim it off. Add more water as needed.
- Strain the broth into a large bowl, allow to cool slightly and then place in the refrigerator.
- The next day, skim off the fat (if you wish) and pour the broth/jelly into ziplock freezer bags. I usually put 2 cups in each bag. Freeze until you need it! If you want to eat it immediately, it will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator.
More Free Recipes + Free Healing Broth Recipe eBook
Now if you want to know how you can get three different meals PLUS chicken broth from just one organic chicken, come along…
You can also grab my FREE Healing Broth Recipe eBook here which also includes some vegetable broth gut healing recipes for you.
Jini Patel Thompson is an internationally recognized expert in natural healing for digestive diseases. She healed herself from widespread Crohn’s disease and has been medication and surgery free for over 25 years. Jini has appeared on numerous podcasts, TV and radio shows in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, giving people hope and vision on how to heal their colitis, Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) using all-natural methods. Her books on natural healing of digestive diseases have been sold in over 80 countries worldwide. Jini is married and has three children, nine sheep, 11 horses, a cat and three dogs.
