Bone Broth Benefits (Ayurveda Insights)

CONSTITUTIONAL MEDICINE INSIGHTS

Rest, Recover & Reset

Warm yourself up with a steaming bowl of homemade bone broth. This healing soup will strengthen the body and help you recharge your batteries, particularly if you're recovering from an illness. It's likely your grandmother made you a batch of this traditional soup as a child. This nutrient dense, easily digestible food is exactly what your tummy likes when it's weak. Rest, recover and reset your digestive strength with bone broth.

Light, easy, liquid and oily, this recipe is particularly useful in cold, dry months to keep you grounded, nourished and warm. Drink a small cup of this mineral rich soup daily to ward off autumn deficiencies. It acts as a tonic, allowing your body to restock on much needed nutrient supplies. It also pacifies Vata and soothes the central nervous system. You'll feel calm, soothed and on the mend after this bone broth soup.

Strengthen & Heal the Gut

Bone broth has been used medicinally for thousands of years with its origins in Chinese medicine. An inexpensive and simple meal to prepare, it's a convenient yet powerful health tonic to add to a modern diet. It has a particular affinity for strengthening the blood, due to its rich iron content, leading to healthy tissue and organ functioning. The easy to digest nature of bone broth soup means it's transformed in the body with ease, supporting a healthy immune system and increasing overall strength and vitality (ojas).

As well as boosting immunity, bone broth is anti-inflammatory. It reduces an excess of Pitta while still enkindling digestive strength (agni) and improving absorption of nutrients. Adding a little ghee to your soup will further enhance the anti-inflammatory, cooling and immunity boosting properties of this meal. Amino acids present in bone broth such as cystine, histidine and glycine are also known to reduce gut inflammation.

Make digestive disturbances a thing of the past with regular intake of bone broth. If you experience constipation, diarrhea, IBS, leaky gut or Crohn's disease, drink bone broth to re-establish regular bowel movements and a healthy gut flora. The anti-inflammatory properties and collagen content of this meal soothe and repair a damaged gastrointestinal tract and strengthen the digestive system.

The Best Bones

Bone broth increases bone strength. By eating foods with similar qualities of a certain tissue, we can increase the strength of that specific tissues. For example, adding mineral rich bone broth to your diet will naturally increase the strength and quality of the bones (plus your hair, nails and teeth too!). This follows the Ayurvedic rule of 'like increases like'.

The light, clear, liquid qualities of bone broth mean it is easily absorbed and can penetrate and nourish the deeper tissues of the body such as bone. It also contains collagen, glucosamine and chondroitin, all essential ingredients for healthy bones and joints. In serious cases of bone disease, bone broth has been used as an enema under medical supervision to help restore degenerated bones to good health.

When making bone broth, it is important to source good quality bones used from healthy animals. Try an organic butchers or a local farmer and don't limit yourself to just one source - experiment with bones from beef, bison, chicken, turkey, lamb or fish. This meal may be a little too oily for Kapha, but you can add some black pepper or fresh ginger to the pot to enhance digestion. Enjoy bone broth alone or use it as a stock in a multitude of recipes, such as Morning Broth with Ghee and Lime Salt & Spices. Leave a Comment / Question

About Bone Broth

Bone broth is made from bones, water and vinegar. The vinegar helps leach important minerals from the bones.

Cooking Bone Broth

To extract blood-building marrow from beef bones, roast dry below 200 for one hour. Chicken bones do not need to be roasted.

Then to do the following:

1. Place bones in a pot and cover with water.

2. Add 2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar and leave sit for one hour (this will help leach out minerals).

3. Coarsely chop onion, celery and carrots and add to the pot.

4. Then, simmer below 200 for 24 hrs in a slow cooker. This will prevent collagen from turning into gelatin.

5. Strain and serve.