You may have already read about the many benefits of bone broth for not only weight loss, but also good health. Bone broth is made from slow cooking bones in the crock pot or on the stovetop for hours to days. The bones that are the best are often the “toss aways,” such as chicken necks, knuckle bones and joints. You can even roast a couple of chickens and use the bones left over after removing the meat. While Grandma often used these bones to make stock for soup and prevent waste, people now buy the bones specifically for bone broth. The health benefits range from healing leaky gut, a rather mysterious syndrome that’s not fully accepted as a condition in the medical community, to looking younger and evenlosing weight.
What is leaky gut and how does bone broth help?
The existence of leaky gut has two camps. One medical camp adamantly denies it exists and the other claims many of the health woes from inflammatory bowel disease, slow thyroid, food intolerance, psoriasis, acne and mood disorders. Both camps agree that changing the barrier in the gut or making the bowel more porous could create these problems. Treatment for leaky gut includes removing offending foods, replacing them with healing ones and boosting your system with supplements and probiotics. Bone broth is one of those healing foods. The bone has gelatin that helps seal up the porous intestinal lining. That helps relieve the diarrhea, food intolerance and constipation that can occur.
Bone broth is packed full of nutrients.
While it shouldn’t be the only healthy food you have in your diet, it can supplement your diet when consumed either as a quick drink or made into soup. It provides calcium, magnesium, phosphorous and amino acids. Those can help build healthy bones, teeth and even help muscle recovery and boost your energy. That makes your workout easier and more effective.
Is bone broth a cure all?
Absolutely not. No one food can provide all the nutrients you need for a healthy diet. However, it can provide an inexpensive way to supplement your diet and maybe even help you lose weight. Bone broth is low in calories, but very filling. It doesn’t cost much since you can make it from the bones left over from meat. While “fancy” bone broths are made from roasting bones, then boiling them for hours on end, you can roast chicken, use the meat for low calorie chicken salad, as a main dish or to top a salad and save the bones for nutrient rich broth for filling soup.
- Even though nobody is certain whether bone broth really does provide the benefits touted, it can’t hurt and is easy to make. It is one way to supplement a weight loss diet and provide extra nutrients.
- Bone broth contains collagen. A study in 2014 showed that collagen consumption improved skin elasticity and moisture. The nutrients in bone broth can help slow the growth or reduce the potential for cataracts.
- Bone broth can help boost the immune system. Many of the nutrients found in bone broth are beneficial to boosting the immune system. You can help keep colds at bay when you drink bone broth regularly.