Benefits of consuming broth with an elemental diet
If you’ve been following LTYG for a while, you probably already know what a basic diet is and how it can be used for bowel rest to promote bowel healing.
And if you are new, welcome! You can find out everything about elementary nutrition here and in the “Elementary nutrition” section of the blog. And don’t forget to download Jini’s Everything You Need to Know About Elemental Diets e-book, where Jini tells you everything you need to know about elemental diets, how an elemental diet can help you, and how to best use an elemental diet to make it easier Your cure! You can download it for free here.
Consume broth with an elemental diet
Today I want to talk to you about the powerful combination of medicinal broths and an elemental diet as both offer tremendous benefits – but when used together they can help reach ALL the angles while you’re trying to heal the colon.
In her book, The IBD Remission Diet, Jini says:
βI strongly advocate that people drink meat and vegetable broths in between Absorb Plus shakes while dieting. This is largely due to the amazing health benefits of homemade bone broths. But it also serves to stimulate the appetite: Those who constantly only consume sweet tastes will quickly be full and simply cannot think of another shake!
However, if you switch between sweet and salty flavors, your appetite will be stimulated and it will be much easier to get the calories you need from the Absorb Plus Elemental Diet shakes every day. “
If you’ve read her book and used Bone Broth with Absorb Plus Shakes, then you will know exactly what Jini means by “stimulating the appetite” as the sweetness of shakes can be LOT if it’s the only thing you consume. Personally, I love bone and vegetable broths, and it definitely helped me switch between broths and shakes when I was on the elemental diet myself.
Benefits of broth
Bone / vegetable broth is beneficial because:
- The gelatin & collagen it contains helps with leaky gut by repairing the intestinal walls
- It increases the appetite
- It helps your body prepare for digestion
- It contains a lot of amino acids
- It contains glycine which is a great antioxidant
- It relieves inflammation
- It increases the body’s detoxification
Because bone broth is high in glycine, it stimulates your body to produce glutathione, an incredibly powerful antioxidant. It is generally reused and recycled by our bodies, but when there is a poor diet or other health issue it can run out and not properly detoxify our bodies.
By adding bone broth to your diet while ridding your body of foods that could cause inflammation, you are giving glutathione the best possible environment to thrive and do its magic.
As Sally Fallon writes in her Broth is Beautiful article:
βWhen broth is cooled, it solidifies due to the presence of gelatin. The use of gelatin as a therapeutic agent goes back to the ancient Chinese. Gelatine was probably the first functional food that goes back to the invention of the “diger” by the French Papin in 1682. Papin’s Digester 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, gelatine was at the fore in food research two hundred years ago.
Gelatin was widely hailed as the most nutritious food, especially by the French, who were looking for ways to feed their armies and large numbers of the homeless in Paris and other cities. The French led the way in gelatin research, which continued into the 1950s. Although gelatin is not a complete protein and contains only the amino acids arginine and glycine in large quantities, it acts as a protein sparer and helps the poor stretch a few bites of meat into a full meal. During the siege of Paris, when vegetables and meat were scarce, a doctor named Guerard put his patients on gelatin broth with some added fat, and they survived in good health.
Gelatin was found to be useful in treating a long list of diseases, including gastric ulcer, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice, and cancer. Babies had fewer digestive problems when gelatin was added to their milk. American researcher Francis Pottenger pointed out that since gelatin is a hydrophilic colloid, which means that it attracts and holds liquids, it makes digestion easier by attracting digestive juices to the food in the intestine. Even the connoisseurs realized that soups on broth do more than just please the palate. βSoup is a healthy, light, nutritious food,β said Brillant-Savarin, βgood for all humanity; it pleases the stomach, stimulates the appetite and prepares digestion. “
Aside from all of its health benefits, what’s brilliant about Jini’s IBD remission protocol is that bone broth helps prepare for digestion – so your gut and body are now prepared for the shake to be digested so that you can ingest and receive it in full most advantages! That’s why I always have consume my broth right BEFORE eating.
Even today, I still consume something before a meal to aid digestion. However, sometimes broth can make me hungry throughout the day – so eating right after drinking the broth can help you avoid overeating. I’ve experienced this personally, but keep this in mind when consuming it, in case your body reacts the same way!
Benefits of an elementary diet
Jini compares elementary nutrition to breast milk in this video interview. Much like when I said to cook your food until it has a “baby food” texture, you want to bring your food back to the basics. This gives time for the intestines to heal without tearing or opening wounds when solids are passed through the GI tract.
The Benefits I Experienced Using An Elemental Diet:
- It put my entire gastrointestinal tract at rest – and enabled me to heal
- It provided the calories I needed without being digested
- I used it to gain weight, but you can also use it to lose weight
- It’s a HEALTHY spare meal when I need it
To learn more about the benefits of an elemental diet, read Jini’s book – THE IBD REMISSION DIET. You can download Chapter 1 free of charge here.
Jini wrote this book in response to readers of her first book (LISTEN TO YOUR INTESTINES) asking for more detailed instructions on following the Elemental Resting Diet described in Chapter 3 of this book. It’s ideal for anyone with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis, or severe irritable bowel syndrome who is fed up with the drug and surgical cycle. The IBD Remission Diet is a specialized next-generation combination of an elementary liquid diet with bone and vegetable broths as well as proven natural remedies that have been proven to cure the symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)!
The ultimate healing duo
Both the amino acids contained in broths and Absorb Plus shakes help maintain the integrity of the mucous membrane and build beneficial microorganism growth in the intestine. For example, let’s just take ONE of the amino acids Jini has in her AP shake: L-glutamine. L-glutamine is responsible for repairing the lining of the intestines, and bone broth helps reduce inflammation. So if you have a bleeding ulcer or stricture, you can see why taking BOTH can be beneficial!
Now that we’ve talked about the powerful combination of Absorb Plus shakes and bone / vegetable broths, and how they work together to promote colon / intestinal healing, stimulate appetite, and prepare the body for digestion, let me give you an example of elemental dieting -Routine so that you can implement yourself better (if you want)!
As part of the IBD Remission Diet Program, Jini recommends people with severe IBD symptoms at least 4-5 shakes a day to ensure they are meeting their nutritional goals. However, this is only a recommendation as everyone is different! One person may need fewer shakes than another, or vice versa. And when you first start the diet, it’s best to start with even fewer shakes and work your way up (to ensure tolerance).
Here’s a general idea of ββmy schedule for the times I’ve been on an elemental diet. As you can see, some days I needed more calories and some I didn’t – it just depended on how I was feeling and what my body needed that day. Depending on these factors, I then added or subtracted shakes.
Example of an elementary diet routine:
- Powdered probiotics in the morning on an empty stomach (if using Healthy Trinity, take them WITH a meal / shake)
- Absorb Plus Shake with additional vitamins for the day
- Bone broth before lunch (as it stimulates the appetite)
- Absorb Plus Shake
- Bone broth again (as a late afternoon snack when I’m hungry)
- Probiotics empty again before dinner (or with shake if using Healthy Trinity)
- Absorb Plus Shake
- Then I would repeat the bone broth and shake it again if I was still hungry
Jini recommends taking a probiotic dose right by the bed (if you can tolerate it) so you can use the 3x / day method or take twice and skip the dinner dose – whatever works for you.
Have fun playing around with it and see what best fits your schedule! We also have a couple of blog posts + a video on how to navigate a confusing supplement plan, all of which are fantastic:
Confusing Supplement Plan – HELP!
Before & after examples of supplementation plans
Confusing Supplement Plan – 4 Simplifying Tips
Well I hope you found this helpful today! If you are currently on an elementary diet, I hope this inspires you to incorporate these medicinal broths into your healing regiment. And if you’re not on an elementary diet, these broths are still extremely useful! And they’re great for sauces, stews, soups, rice, noodles, etc. You can download Jini’s Medicinal Broth Recipe eBook for FREE here – and start using these medicinal broths today.
Until next time – happy healing and always listen to your gut feeling!
Linsy is Jini’s assistant. From a highly sensitive / reactive case of ulcerative colitis to complete freedom from medication and surgery using exclusively natural methods, Linsy understands the interplay of mind / body / soul on the healing path firsthand.