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During these cold months, consider swapping out your steaming mug of tea periodically to sip on broth instead. Sure, tea offers a wealth of health benefits (and by all means, go ahead and enjoy it as you like!), but broth crosses the food-medicine divide and offers moisturizing properties that soothe dry mucous membranes and nourish the body. What’s the Big Deal About Broth? Throughout history and our modern world, many cultures thrive on broth (and closely related "stock") as a mainstay of a healthy diet. Simmering bones, meat, and veggie scraps for hours infuses the water with flavor, vitamins, minerals, and other useful compounds in a highly bioavailable. Broth, stock, and simple soups are enjoyed in more elaborate dishes or sipped with breakfast or before an entree to warm the body, nourish the soul, and curb overeating, particularly in Asian and Indian cuisine. I appreciate this simple, economical, and nutrient-dense food in the context of the frugal deliciousness of my own family food heritage: my Sicilian mother’s cross-stitched "Waste Not, Want Not" plaque hung above our dinner table; my Nova Scotian grandmother’s back-to-the earth organic homestead where even bacon grease found new life (as soap!); Korean and Chinese relatives who employ chicken feet, fish heads, hot pot soups, and Thanksgiving turkey bones for flavor-packed dishes that stretch out scraps most Americans toss in the trash.

Many different types of broth are enjoyed - vegetable, miso, animal-based - but perhaps the trendiest broth is "bone broth," which is made by simmering chicken, beef, fish, or other animal bones for many hours over low heat, sometimes with a splash of vinegar. The best bone broths jiggle with gelatin and collagen when they cool, a source of great pride in home chefs (though jiggle-free broth is still loaded with good stuff!). Bone broth popularity has skyrocketed in recent years with Nourishing Traditions/Western A. Price Foundation and Paleo food trends. With long simmering, connective tissue from the scraps dissolves into the broth, potentially making it more beneficial for our own connective tissue vitality: joints, skin, etc. Proponents believe that broth is not only delicious but may ease chronic pain, health the gut, and gradually alleviate autoimmune disease. The longer simmering time, bones, joints, and bits of meat may also extract more minerals like calcium, and approximately 10 times more protein content than more basic broths (study available here).

More menus and grocery stores feature bone broth, and specialty broth restaurants have popped up in hipster neighborhoods. Unfortunately, your typical store-bought "broth" is devoid of this goodness and little more than a delivery system for insanely high sodium levels and MSG or glutamate-related compounds, even the natural and organic ones. Meanwhile, purchasing the "good stuff" costs a small fortune - up to $10 per serving for bone broth - but any good home cook knows you can make a vat of broth with ease on leftovers for a fraction of the price. Here’s a basic recipe to start you off. Chicken is an easy go-to starter broth because it’s possibly the most delicious broth and easily accessible as an ingredient. To save money at the store, we often buy whole chickens, butcher it into smaller pieces to make multiple meals, then save the main carcass in the freezer for broth. If you loved this information and you would want to receive details relating to manufacturer of shiitake mushroom extract powder as Raw Material for food generously visit the web site. You can also roast a whole chicken, eat the meat, then throw all your leftover bones into the pot.

Feel free to sub in other animal scraps like fish bones/heads or oven-roasted beef bones, cross-cut marrow bones. Chicken wings or feet, beef knuckles, shanks, and pig hooves have the most gelatin and other giggly-worthy compounds. Cooked or raw, carcasses and other leftover dinner bones freeze well until you have time to make broth. Leftover ham bone? Leg of lamb? Turkey carcass from Thanksgiving? Shrimp shells? Save it to make broth! Vinegar is optional and imparts a sour flavor (easy does it!) but may help extract more minerals from the bones. Certainly, feel free to add vegetables such as carrots, celery, parsley, and onion to the simmering pot for sweetness and more complex nutrition and flavor. Simmer, covered, for a minimum of 3 hours or preferably all day. If you were using a whole chicken, remove carefully, let cool, and pull away the meet to save for other recipes. Strain. Remove fat if desired (this is easier to do after it cools).