Bone broth

[Marlena]

You all may know this, but Pacific puts out several bone broths - turkey, chicken, beef and then a non-boner, veggie. Very low saltI think Wegman's has them and my local very small health food store carries them. The chicken one is pretty good and you can add flavors according to taste. Sometimes, you just don't have the whatever to make it if you need it. And you can use it to just cook with.

 

[autumn_rose]

A quality brand, or making it yourself, is awesome. Bone broth contains a lot of great nutrition, especially helpful for joints and ligaments, cartilage, etc. After age 25, the body no longer carries what it needs to continue repairing/maintaining its joints, cartilage and such, so you have to get it from an external source. Bone broth for the win! If it's not up someone's alley, I suggest a special powdered, unflavored, beef gelatin powder that will do the same. I wish I could prepare my own bone broth, but haven't had much luck in finding quality bones for sale, just the bones. Weird, right? College town.

 

[SmellyMelly]

You all may know this, but Pacific puts out several bone broths - turkey, chicken, beef and then a non-boner, veggie. Very low salt I think Wegman's has them and my local very small health food store carries them. The chicken one is pretty good and you can add flavors according to taste. Sometimes, you just don't have the whatever to make it if you need it. And you can use it to just cook with.

I have tried several brands and found them to be disgusting :ybiggrin:........especially when compared to homemade. I like the taste of homemade and it is SO much economically cheaper and more nutritious.

The one I am making is very simple and very cheap: onion, garlic, carrot, celery, parsley, chicken meat, chicken bones (neck and feet are the cheapest cuts), water, bay leaf. Cook in a slow cooker for 24 hours. Throw out all the solids and drink the broth.

My biggest problems with brands, is many of them don't actually use REAL chicken, turkey, beef, whatever. They just use artificial flavorings and pass it off as real meat. Loads of sodium, artificial flavor enhancers and preservatives tend to cause an UC flare for me.

 

[SmellyMelly]

I wish I could prepare my own bone broth, but haven't had much luck in finding quality bones for sale

Can you buy a whole or pre-cut up raw chicken anywhere in your town? I would be 99% sure that you can.

Guessing that most towns the world over have supermarkets or butchers (or a local farmers markets) that sell raw chickens for roasting.

Just buy a whole raw chicken from the butchers and cut it up, so the bones are more exposed and it fits in the pot more easily.....and use that.

I have also seen recipes where you can buy a barbequed chicken. I have never tried this, as I think slow cooking from raw is more nutritious.

If you don't know how or don't have a decent knife, then the butcher will normally chop it for you. I learnt how to break down a chicken properly from YouTube.

Or just buy some raw prepackaged chicken drumstick cuts and wings from the deli or meat department in the supermarket.

That is what I do and either way works a treat.

No need to use solely bones and nothing else.

And I have just found an Asian grocer in our local Chinatown who sells raw chicken necks and feet. It is quite freaky and disgusting to see feet cooking in the broth :ybiggrin: but they are very nutritious and prized for their gelatine content.

Make sure you sieve the broth well before drinking, as chicken toenails and broken down bits of bone need to be removed.

 

[Marlena]

B-) Smelly Kelly after I wrote that I had some of th broth. You're right awful!!!!!!!! IN cooking, it's okay. Usually I do my own, but I was trying it out.

 

[Layla]

I always keep the carcass from when I roast a chicken and chuck it in the freezer. Once I have 2 or more I make the broth (without onions!), that way the bones are free

When I was in hospital my hubby made a delicious oxtail broth (the hospital only had powdered with onions of course), surely you could find oxtail or ossobuco meat with the bone inside and make soup from that?

 

[Marlena]

Yeah, I do that with chickens, too, very tasty stuff. Don't usually do beef - just don't like it as well.

 

[Dackelmann]

Any decent butcher will have the gear you need. We buy chicken frames as well as necks. A lot of butchers keep these for pet food. My dachshunds eat raw necks frequently. Cheap and good. Sometimes throwing a bit of star anise or lemongrass into the broth zings it up as well.

 

[SmellyMelly]

Please read this:

"The risk of lead contamination in bone broths":

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23375414

I am not 100% sure if they are just referring to processed shop brought broth - or they also mean homemade broth. I am pretty sure they mean both.

I am not worried at all. But you may want to consider the implications and factors before making this broth.

I am using Certified Organic Free Range Chicken. And as the base, I am cooking the chicken in filtered water (not tap) that is completely free of BPA, chlorine, bacteria, fluoride, sodium and other impurities.

I am not drinking this excessively as part of a diet. But rather using it as a nourishing drink as part of my diet occasionally.

 

[Nancye50]

Ugh, I hate to hear that about the lead!! The study was done on organic chickens. Shoot!

 

[Marlena]

Our world is in trouble, thanks to us.

 

[SmellyMelly]

Ugh, I hate to hear that about the lead!! The study was done on organic chickens. Shoot!

Lets not get too hasty :ysmile: Organic is a much mangled word. Were they certified organic (i.e.) raised from eggs to chickens in a clean certified organic environment / pastures.

Again I am not worried in the slightest, since the broth is helpful for UC. Plus my broth is homemade, so at least I know that clean water free from impurities and organic veggies are going in it too.

I reckon I did myself more long term damage, with the daily drugs they gave me for UC. Than having a broth occasionally. I posted above not to worry you but more to inform. Good to have all the information before proceeding.

 

[Nancye50]

You're right! It was just a discouraging moment

 

[xeridea]

Please read this:

"The risk of lead contamination in bone broths":

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23375414

I am not 100% sure if they are just referring to processed shop brought broth - or they also mean homemade broth. I am pretty sure they mean both.

I wish the full study was available so you can see the method they used to prepare the broth. Most home-made recipes include adding parsley and/or cilantro, both great at chelating heavy metals. And since you strain these out at the end you're likely removing some of the lead in the process.

Edit: I did some more searching and found that The Stone Hearth co-op out of Berkeley had their bone broth analyzed and found no detectable amounts of lead at sensitivity level of 5 ppb:

Issued by The National Food Lab (report #CL5180-0).

Tested on February 14, 2013 at a minimum detection level (MDL) of 10 parts per billion and again on March 1, 2013 with an MDL of 5 parts per billion, the results show:

Reverse osmosis water: no lead detected
Pastured chicken broth: no lead detected
Grass-fed beef broth: no lead detected