Bone broth is my go to drink whenever I feel like a need a warm hug from my food and a little extra nourishment. It’s a delicious nutrient dense drink that’s also easy to make. Before I run you through just how easy it is to make your own brew of goodness here’s a few of the benefits of this amazing prehistoric drink.

• Helps promote good gut health. Lets talk about your gut for a second, because gut health is something that I’m super passionate about. The lining of your intestine is selectively permeable to allow nutrients to pass through and be absorbed into the body. This lining can become too permeable due to lifestyle factors such as consumption of highly processed foods, stress, some medications and pesticides ingested from fruit and veg. When the lining becomes too permeable undigested food particles can pass through the gut lining and directly into the bloodstream. This situation really puts a lot of unnecessary stress on the body, just think of your poor liver having to deal with all this foreign matter. The glutamine in bone broth can help repair a hyperpermeable intestinal wall.
• Reduces joint pain and inflammation. Bone broth is loaded with glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). These GAGs include glucosamine, chondroitin and hyaluronic acid. They have the ability to stimulate the growth of new collagen aiding in the repair of damaged joints and leading to a possible reduction in pain and inflammation. Bone broth is very high in the anti-inflammatory amino acids glycine and proline
• Give your hair, skin and nails some loving from the inside. The collagen and gelatin in bone broth helps build healthy hair, skin and nails.
• Magic minerals a plenty. The minerals in bone broths include calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, zinc and selenium. They are critical for many bodily functions and impact everything from our bones to our mood and our joint health.

As the name suggests bone broth is made from bones. I trend to always use chicken, but you can certainly change that up. Try and find an organic chook who’s had a happy life. I’m not much of a recipe follower myself but below are some guidelines on what you might like to put into your broth.

All you really need to know is that you are combining bones with some meat still attached, vegetables spices and herbs to add flavour, apple cider vinegar (helps to leach more minerals out of the bones) and enough water to cover your bones and some then simmer for 24 and 48 hours easy peasy.

If you’ve like a bit more elaboration around vegies, spices and herbs I tend to use the following:

• Celery
• Carrots
• Onions
• Bay Leaves
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Whole Peppercorns

But you can really just go with whatever your heart desires.

Happy Brewing!