Making Bone Broth

[haha]

My GF started a meat only diet, so when she comes for dinner, I serve steaks like rib steaks and Porterhouse. She does the same at home. She eats like a lumberjack but neverthless her weight varies between 100 and 102#. We both collect the bones in our freezers, and from time to time I boil them in a big kettle, then transfer to my crock pot for a total of three days boiling. I have to be sure not to let the water run too low. On account of her diet, the only thing added to the bones besides water is wine vinegar and salt.

I am drinking some of the broth now, with a little added Tabasco. Extremely pleasant food! I also freeze a lot of it in a silicone tray advertised for freezing home made baby rations. Then I can add a block or two to anything I am making, like a stew for example. In the fridge, it looks like a jar of meat jelly.

It's quality stuff, and even in my small apartment/kitchen pretty easy to handle. Lots of paleo gurus talk this up, but I have no knowledge of actual health effects if any to be had from this. I feel that I do have to very careful preparing it or contamination might produce some very unpleasant health effects.

Ha

[NW-Bound]

Yes. I like bone broth. I don't know about health effect, but it is good stuff in soup and has a lot of minerals, so can't be bad.

I never do 3 days of boiling though. We do as long as 12 hours, by using a 2-gal thermal cooker (an insulated pot to maintain the heat passively)

[MichaelB]

DW makes hers - chicken and beef - around this time of year. A large pan cooks for around 18 hours and makes 5-6 quarts. She adds salt, garlic, onion, and some vegetables for flavor, but tosses all the solids and only keeps the broth. Fall is soup time for us, which is so much better with her homemade base instead of grocery broth.

[braumeister]

Another fan of homemade bone broth here.
Not only good tasting, but also a good source of electrolytes (sodium, magnesium, potassium, etc.). So there's a health benefit.

[audreyh1]

Instant pot I use for bone broth. My doctor had me drinking it daily for a while. Not sure if it helped, but it was very satisfying.

[Fedup]

I’ve been making bone broth and oxtail soup. I make the soup using slow crockpot. In some pots, I throw in lentils, carrots, onions, celery, and cumin. The soup tastes delicious, we have them with our usual lunch. It must be good for my health because lately I seem to see very well at night and long distance.
This is something we must start doing, eat better for our health.

[Rianne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fedup I’ve been making bone broth and oxtail soup. I make the soup using slow crockpot. In some pots, I throw in lentils, carrots, onions, celery, and cumin. The soup tastes delicious, we have them with our usual lunch. It must be good for my health because lately I seem to see very well at night and long distance. This is something we must start doing, eat better for our health.

The healthiest food you can eat. Low fat, filled with vitamins. We throw any vegetables available in with beef or chicken bones from Ye Old Meat Store. I can't eat much salt so we spice with paprika and red peppers.

We also make bean soup from scratch and freeze it. Celery, carrots, peppers, onions, kale, spinach all in a huge pot and simmer for a few hours. Good fiber, protein and vitamins. I stay away from canned soup or frozen dinners, scary stuff.

[Amethyst]

Every chicken or turkey carcass gets boiled down to make vegetable soup.

We used to eat canned soup a couple of times a week. After I started cutting salt in our diet, the canned soup became unbearably salty. But they have lower-sodium soup, you say? Well, ours is no-sodium-at-all soup!

[Fedup]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amethyst Every chicken or turkey carcass gets boiled down to make vegetable soup. We used to eat canned soup a couple of times a week. After I started cutting salt in our diet, the canned soup became unbearably salty. But they have lower-sodium soup, you say? Well, ours is no-sodium-at-all soup!

I have not eaten canned soup in years. But I do throw in a bit of salt in my soup.
No sodium soup, what do you use for flavoring? Herbs?

[Red Badger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fedup I have not eaten canned soup in years. But I do throw in a bit of salt in my soup. No sodium soup, what do you use for flavoring? Herbs?

Our local spice monger makes a garlic-habanero hot sauce that I add to soups and stews. No salt needed! We also add herbs from the garden. We'll use local and asian spices to amp things up as well. We'll add salt, but only occasionally and sparingly.

We also make bone broth from any critter we've consumed. Didn't used to do so, but we both became serious about dietary lifestyles a few years back. We now find processed foods rather frightening. Same with grain fed beef - no thanks.

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister Another fan of homemade bone broth here. Not only good tasting, but also a good source of electrolytes (sodium, magnesium, potassium, etc.). So there's a health benefit.

Another great thing about bone broth is the collagen it provides. Many people who eat a traditional Western diet are deficient in collagen.

More info. on collagen and why it's important: https://blog.kettleandfire.com/what-...agen-good-for/

[Fedup]

I get super thick like gelatin with my oxtail soup. Unbelievable goodness. I put my crockpot in the fridge and take out the next morning, that way I was able to skim the fat layer. From the article Rae provided, it’s type 3 cooagen, good for blood vessels, no wonder I can see better and farther, both day and night. Particular improvement is at night where I often have problem seeing.

[Sunset]

My mother would send me to the butcher to get free bones so she could make soup, many decades ago.
This summer we were at the family cottage for 2 months, and we found 3 large bones lying around the property.... DW asked what they were as it looked like a serial killer had lived there.

Back then, we would give the bones to the dog to chew on, so they got scattered around in the woods.

[NW-Bound]

Searching the Web for info on bone broth, I ran across a report of people diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning in a particular hospital. Common between the patients: they drink gallons of bone broth. Yikes!

Bones are known to have traces of lead and cadmium. Adding vinegar enhances the leaching of these metals.

Drinking less than gallons of broth should still be OK, I think.

Quote:

Reducing the broth pH from 8.38 to 5.32 significantly (p < 0.05) increased Ca and Mg extraction by factors of 17.4 and 15.3, respectively. A long cooking time, > 8 h, yielded significantly higher (p < 0.05) Ca and Mg extraction than shorter cooking times.

See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5533136/.

[Fedup]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Searching the Web for info on bone broth, I ran across a report of people diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning in a particular hospital. Common between the patients: they drink gallons of bone broth. Yikes! Bones are known to have traces of lead and cadmium. Adding vinegar enhances the leaching of these metals. Drinking less than gallons of broth should still be OK, I think. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5533136/.

I don’t put any vinegar in my broth. But this study cites pigs from Taipei, will it make a difference?

[NW-Bound]

Searching the Web again, I find that the lead level in animals may vary with each region or farm that raises them. That makes sense, because it all depends on the environment, the soil, the vegetation, the feed, etc..., where the animals are raised.

There was a study from the UK that reported higher lead levels in broth made from chicken skin and cartilage than from chicken bones. Then, another Web article mentioned that the lead level reported was still lower than what the EPA allowed in tap water.

Searching the Web using the phrase "heavy metal bone broth", I found a plethora of info, pointing every which way. As we do not know where the bones we use come from, it's impossible to tell what is safe and what is not.