In our journey to better nutrition, we’ve learned the value of making our own meat stocks.  In general, our bodies benefit from consuming the body parts of healthy animals.  In the making of chicken stock, we slow cook the bones, skin, and organs.  In turn, we get a stock containing:

• minerals of bone, cartilage, collagen, marrow and other organs (such as liver and gizzards) and these minerals are easily assimilated by the body
• proteinaceous gelatin which are hydrophillic colloids that attract digestive juices and aid in digestion.
• cartilage.  A structural component of cartilage is chondroitin sulfate.  This is essential in maintaining the integrity of the extracellular matrix.  It has also been found to lower cholesterol and decrease the incidence of heart attacks
• amino acids glycine and proline.  Glycine is important in the production of heme which carries the oxygen in our blood.  Glycine also supports glucogenesis which in turn supports digestion by enhancing gastric acid secretion and is also important for wound healing.  Finally, glycine supports detoxification of the liver.  Proline is vital to the structure of collagen and therefore our bones, skin, ligaments, tendons and cartilage.
• red bone marrow.  It contains the precursors to red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets which our body converts to mature cells.

Historically, stocks have been used to treat a variety of aliments including (but not limited to) bone disorders, rheumatiod arthritis, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, flu and asthma.

In the past month we have been making chicken stock.  (Bones of one 4 to 5 lbs. chicken makes about 6 cups of stock.)  Our favorite stock based recipes include chicken tortilla soup and chicken black bean soup.  The taste of homemade stock is superior to that store-bought.  We’ll share these recipes with you soon.

A great site for further information on the health benefits of bone stock is from the Jade Institute.:

http://www.jadeinstitute.com/jade/bone-broth-health-building.php

(Thank you, Tina!)

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