CrossFit South Bend

Today we are going to talk about bone broth. So some of you may have heard of bone broth, some of you may have not, but it’s all the rage these days, and for good reason … it’s super, super, super healthy for you.

So first of all, let’s start with a little explanation of what is bone broth? So bone broth is basically just, it’s very similar to chicken stock, or beef stock that you might be familiar with. It’s basically where you take a series of bones with some meat on it, throw in some veggies, typically carrots, celery and onion, but it could be peppers, garlic, any sort of spices that you like and you put it in a crock pot or a pressure cooker or something on the stove top and you let it cook down and what you’re left with is some sort of drink or base for soups and stews that can be used to do a lot to improve your health.

So I actually happen to have a cup of it right here, that I’ve been sipping out of. That’s what bone broth typically looks like, that’s chicken bone broth and that’s just a melted version of this bonified bone broth that I’m going to talk about in just a second.

A lot of people wonder, what’s the difference between stock and broth? Well, typically stock, in a culinary context, is going to be something that you want to have really clear, and typically, it’s just usually made from meat and veggies and you just cook it for about three to four hours. With bone broth, however, the goal is not necessarily clarity as you saw with that cup I have right here, it’s pretty cloudy. It’s extracting all the nutrients. So typically, you’ll cook it for anywhere from 12 to 24 hours, if it’s in a crock pot or the stove top, and you might put in some apple cider vinegar to help extract the nutrients from the bones. And typically with bone broth, while there might be some meat, there’s usually a lot of bone.

What is bone broth helpful for from a health context? It has a lot of collagen and gelatin. It contains a lot of amino acids that we don’t necessarily get from the muscle meats that we typically eat, things like steak and pork chop and chicken breast. You don’t get a lot of collagen and gelatin from those things. So collagen and gelatin is really helpful for hair, skin, nails. It’s really helpful for repairing the gut. It’s really helpful for immunity. Believe it or not, when people talk about how chicken soup is the remedy for all that ails you, what’s healthy about chicken soup, or chicken noodle soup, isn’t the noodles, it’s the actual chicken stock, or chicken broth. That’s the part that’s really healthy for you.

Bone broth is healthy for immunity, helpful for healing the gut lining, and helpful for hair, skin and nails. So how do you make the stuff? Well, like I said earlier, you can literally take the bones and meat from a chicken that you’ve just finished eating, throw it in a crock pot with some carrots, celery and onions, some apple cider vinegar, cook it down for 24 hours, strain it and then store it in some jars. You can do the same thing on the stove top. You can do it super quick in a pressure cooker, maybe in like an hour or two. But, what a lot of people realize is that they just don’t like taking the time to do that. I’m one where I’ve said I was going to make it a number of times, and I’ve made it once or twice, but it hasn’t really turned out the way I wanted. So there are a lot of great options now that will allow you to just buy it and have it ready made.

Now, something to keep in mind is that if you want it as cheaply as possible, the best way to do it is to make it at home, but there are these more convenient options. So I’m going to talk about my three favorites. Number one, the one that I use all the time is Bonafide Bone Broth. These guys, I love their brand, I love their ingredients. This is real deal stuff, so in a lot of other stuff, you’re not going to get that gelatinous aspect that you see in here. That goes away obviously once you melt it down. But that’s how you can tell you have real legitimate bone broth. And you can use that for soups, stocks, what have you.

The same company that makes Epic Bars, that a lot of you guys have seen, Epic Provisions, they also make bone broth. Now this is going to be more drinkable straight, they’re not going to have as much collagen and gelatin in there. But this is also the legit, real deal. There’s a lot of stuff that claims to be the real deal that is not. This is the real deal. But think of it more as something that you can sip on. And they’ve got chicken, they’ve got turkey, they’ve got a bison apple cider one, that I’ve tasted recently that’s very good.

Now the new player on the field is Kettle and Fire. These are the only guys out there that are making a bone broth that is shelf stable. That’s actually drinkable, like if you actually bought bone broth, like from a standard stock brand on the shelf and you tried to drink it straight, it would taste disgusting. I’ve tasted this and it tastes really good. They’re the only ones with a proprietary process, where they’re able to get it shelf stable. They’ve got a beef broth and a chicken broth as well.

No one’s really better than the other, just really depends on what you want. This comes frozen and you’ve got to defrost it. This is shelf stable and ready. This needs to be refrigerated. It just depends on what you’re looking for in terms of portability. Another place you can get bone broth? Shout out to Primal Kitchen, that’ll be opening up here soon in our neck of the woods. They’ve got fantastic bone broth.

I just wanted to introduce you to what bone broth is today, explain how it can benefit your health, and show you my top three options for bone broth that you can get in the store. All right, guys, thanks so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.