Bone Broth Benefits

Bone Broth Benefits: How bone broth, especially chicken bone broth, enhances one's health and immune system...

Hippocrates believed that human health was maintained or cured by nothing more than food¹. The concept closely aligns with the idea that the Creator originally designed our bodies to function flawlessly, and additionally provided for a regular, balanced input of nutrients through our food supply that would maintain that flawless function². 

The fact that food helps to maintain health is anecdotally supported by chicken soup's healing reputation in many nations around the world. 

If you're sick, eat chicken soup. During flu season, Grandma keeps a big kettle of chicken broth simmering on the stove. "Here, eat this, it's better for you than penicillin."* And she's probably right, because in two days, your fever is gone and you're feeling much better.

This scenario has played out so often over the years, no matter what country you live in, that the healing reputation of chicken soup has become embedded in the psyche of dozens of nations.

In all actuality, the magic was not in the chicken soup, per se, but in the chicken bone broth that is the back bone of Grandma's chicken soup.*

Bone Broth Benefits Specifically from Chicken

I usually make my chicken bone broth from the remains of a whole chicken after the family has eaten most of the meat. The meat scraps, leftover gravy, bones, skin, lymph system and immune nodules, gizzard, legs, lungs, even the heart and some of the liver - everything goes into the broth pot and gets covered with clean water. A tablespoon or two of vinegar helps leach minerals out of the bones and into the water. Within 24 hours, I can pour the incredibly delicious smelling gelatinous liquid through a sieve into the soup pot. Add a few vegetables, and soon broth becomes chicken soup.

The good from EVERY part of the chicken (not counting feathers or head) will have ALL moved from the chicken pieces into the chicken bone broth. The broth becomes loaded with a wide gamut of essential nutrients from ALL of the chicken, and ALL of this healthful goodness is delivered to the body together, a bowlful at a time.

I think THIS is why chicken bone broth benefits people so profoundly.

Your health is only as strong as its weakest link. Whatever nutrition the body might be needing at the time, it is likely to find in a rich chicken bone broth, whether the need include essential or rare minerals, nutrients such as fats or protein, or essential, immune system strengthening glyconutrients.

What about Soups from Other Meats?

That is a good question! For example, why doesn't beef broth have an equally outstanding reputation for health?

Unlike chickens, beef (and sheep and goats) are very very large as compared to my 22-quart broth pot. Unless your kitchen is super-industrial-sized, one can create soup or stew only from small parts of beef, lamb, or goat at a time.

It isn't that beef, lamb, or goat are unhealthy. When grass-fed and finished, they are very healthy. The difference is that their large size makes it impossible for one meal to deliver such a complete gamut of nutrition at one time as can be done with chickens and chicken broth.

Ingredients of Bone Broth

Rich and hearty homemade chicken bone broth packs an incredible array of health-supporting nutrients:

• Amino acids, the building blocks of every protein in the human body.
  
  
• Collagen, which is an integral part of the connective tissue matrix that holds the body and blood vessels together.
  
  
• Multiple main minerals and trace minerals pulled directly from bones. These are still in the food matrix form connected to all their mineral partners, and are readily absorbed into the human body. This is as compared to the "chemicals and rocks" marketed as vitamins and minerals in capsule form, and provided all by themselves apart from a context for their use. (I am not opposed to vitamin and mineral supplements.)
  
  
• A plethora of vitamins and nutrients in balance with the body's needs, nearly all of which come in tiny but essential quantities, in their food matrix, some of which are difficult (if not impossible) to supplement.

The nutrition in bone broth helps support the digestive system, the immune system, the skin, nails, and hair, the muscles, joints, and ligaments, and the brain and nervous system, all at the same time. It's almost like a miracle!

Six Main Bone Broth Benefits

In his book, Bone Broth Breakthrough³, Dr. Josh Axe identifies SIX main benefits of bone broth. Here is a brief outline of those benefits, along with a mention of some of the nutrients in the bone broth that work the magic.

• First Bone Broth Benefit: Joint Protection
  Have you noticed that refrigerated homemade bone broth gets almost solid when cold? This is due to all the gelatin. Bone broth is rich in gelatin from the skin, connective tissues, and all the chicken bone cartilage entering the bone broth, and that is very good. All that gelatin and related nutrients become available to humans when we eat the broth. The body can then draw from the fresh regular input of gelatin and nutrients to help rebuild the joint structures and add cushioning to the joints. 
  
  
• Second Bone Broth Benefit: The Intestinal Lining
  The collagen and gelatin in the broth restores strength and integrity to the lining of the intestines. Do you have leaky gut? If so, bone broth contains the nutrients that can make necessary repairs. People with food allergies or a diagnosis of gluten intolerance may find relief by eating chicken bone broth soup or even just drinking the bone broth*. I sure did. 
  
  
• Third Bone Broth Benefit: The Immune system
  The best benefit of all might be the modulation -- normalization -- of the immune system! Since 87% of the immune system is IN the intestines, healing the gut lining is an incredible boon to immune system function. 
  
  Bone broth delivers a big punch of immune system help by supplying glucosamine and glycosaminoglycans. According to independent studies done by Mannatech⁴, a company specializing in immune system support, glyconutrients (there are eight of them, and glucosamine and glycosaminoglycans qualify) are essential for immune system function, and work to optimize cellular communication and normalize immune system function. 
  
  In today's world full of sick people, this is a huge benefit. Whenever a substance affects this many systems of the body, immune system improvement is invariably a part of the process.

• Fourth Bone Broth Benefit: Maintenance of Healthy Skin and Connective Tissue
  
  Collagen⁶ is the essential ingredient needed by hair, nails, and skin to maximize their beauty and integrity, and bone broth has lots of it. All that collagen is a part of keeping the wrinkles at bay, to the point of actually being able to tell a difference after just a month of regularly eating bone broth.
  
  The body uses collagen to form elastin, which besides helping the skin remain wrinkle-free, is also part of blood vessels and lungs, among other tissues. Elastic blood vessels can better accommodate normal blood pressure variations, and improve lung function.
  
  
• Fifth Bone Broth Benefit: Detoxification Boost
  Interestingly, bone broth supplies vitamins and proteins that answer the call to clean up cellular waste products, and flush out toxins through the liver. Adding garlic to the bone broth enhances this benefit.
  
  Additionally, bone broth adds glutathione to the mix, a detoxifying nutrient that lowers oxidative stress by wiping out free radicals. Lower cellular stress means less damage to the body, a good thing!

• Sixth Bone Broth Benefit: Metabolism and Tissue-building
  
  If your body fails sufficiently to repair tissue damage and rebuild the damaged parts of the body, the slow skid toward senescence⁵ picks up speed and before you know it, you're in a casket ringed by the weeping heads of all your relatives and friends.
  
  Given the other five benefits of bone broth, it is no surprise that bone broth slows that downward slide into old age. It supports strong and healthy metabolism in bodily functions, slows the breakdown of tissues such as joints, and boosts the rebuilding of muscles and energy production. Wound healing improves, blood circulation improves. 

Regular consumption of bone broth is truly a win win all the way around! Drink it regularly as a tonic, lightly seasoned if needed, or use it to create a delicious chicken bone broth soup. 

Interested in the Minutiae?

As a registered nurse who is considerably self-taught in wellness, I am comfortable sharing the above and believe the big-picture details are accurate.

If you need to go deeper into the physiological minutiae, I recommend Dr. Axe's book, Bone Broth Breakthrough (I have not been paid to say that!). 

Or, consult other experts in holistic wellness.

Just so you know: While Dr. Axe's book describes the many benefits of bone broth, Dr. Axe has a business to run, and he recommends you purchase his commercial bone broth concoctions. When my health was on the rocks, that's what I did, and they helped a lot. 

But I quit making those purchases when I discovered that my own homemade chicken bone broth worked so much more powerfully and quickly than his or other store-bought bone broth products did.

So, I am in no way dissing his products, because they are good, in my opinion. But my experience suggests that your own HOMEMADE bone broth might be even better. That is all.

For those readers that are not, or cannot, make homemade chicken bone broth, do consider obtaining commercial bone broth products, especially if any of these bone broth benefits talk to you.

References:

* Disclaimer:

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Nothing on this page is intended for the purpose of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. 

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