I really love easy things to make and making bone broth is really easy–but it can be time consuming to do. Luckily, I’ve learned a few tricks that make cooking bone broth at home even easier and I would like to share them with you!

My interest bone broth and holistic nutrition began because I wanted to 1) try to “fix” Jay’s seizures through better nutrition, 2) improve my cooking and meal planning for our dream of opening a B&B wellness retreat, and 3) heal my own relationship with food after a lifetime of disordered eating (which I continue to struggle with, but I’m sure I will elaborate on later.) All of this lead me to Holistic Nutrition School (CSNN ~ Canadian School of Natural Nutrition) where I’ve learned so much about how our bodies use food. Bone broth in particular is one of the simplest, most nutritious meals you can put together.

Here are my top five tips for making bone broth at home:

1. You do NOT need to follow a recipe to the tee! I use what I have, and what is in season.
2. Experiment! I love adding new herbs and spices.
3. Don’t skim the fat off. (Unless you want to….)
4. Feel free to save bones for later. If you are too exhausted after making a huge meal and just want to go to bed, that is okay. Just freeze the bones, and use them at a later date (within safety guidelines though).
5. Use organic bones! I really can’t stress this enough. KNOW YOUR SOURCE! I often suggest the “clean 15” and the “dirty dozen” when it comes to your fruit and vegetables, but meat is a different ball of wax.

I make 3 versions of bone broth:

1. Traditional looooooooong style in a gigantic crock pot that I cook for at least 48 hours. I love this style of cooking because it makes my house smell really cozy and makes me want to cozy up to roaring fire. I make long style bone broth when I know I’m not going anywhere as I don’t like to leave the stove on if no one is home.
2. Instant Pot – Seriously, it really can’t get easier than this, it is so fast! Instant Pot makes a great bone broth. My issue with it is that it can’t make the really large batches of bone broth I like to make to share with the four-generation household we have right now. Plus, when we are on a bone broth kick, we are drinking lots of it. The Instant Pot is so fast though that I often make multiple batches in a row using the same bones.
3. Perpetual Bone Broth – I love this method, my only concern ever is that it remains at a high enough temperature.

You can follow most of the same steps no matter what method of making bone broth you choose.

DIRECTIONS for Turkey or Chicken Broth

(Beef has extra steps. Fish is easy but a bit different as well.)

Step 1: Get your bones ready.
Break up all the bones, place them in your pot, and cover the bones with ice cold water.

Step 2: Add the feet (the more the better) and the organs.
 Okay, honestly, this took me a bit to work up to… BUT it is wonderful because the feet are full of gelatin

Step 3: Add a couple glunks of apple cider vinegar:1 mississippi, 2 mississipi…
(Use your judgement, again, you really can’t screw this up.) The reason we add apple cider vinegar is because it draws  minerals out of the bones. Then you let it sit for about an hour.

Step 4: Add your veggies and herbs!
Whatever you have pretty much goes! Except celery. Don’t use too much celery because a little bit goes a long way… and it gets really strong. I love to add: garlic (quartered) carrots (tops off) a COUPLE celery stalks, a few pinches of sea salt.

Step 5: Bring everything to a boil    

Step 6: Let it simmer.
Time on simmer can range. I like to go a couple of days, but if you don’t have a couple of days you can do it overnight or throughout the day. If you are planning to sleep through the night when it is cooking, be sure to wake up a few times to make sure it is not boiling down too much. Once you’ve made the broth a couple of times, you’ll get it down to an art. I use really large pots–my large ones are 30 litres or bigger–so I don’t have as much risk running low on water in a huge pot.

Step 7: Crack the bones.
As you are cooking, you can crack the bones to pull out more minerals. Eventually it gets really easy to crack the bones.

Step 8: When you are ready, remove all the bones.
This is where it can get messy. At least for me it does. My pots are so huge that it is not possible for me to just strain from one pot to another as they are way too heavy. So I pull out all the bones and put them aside.

Step 9: Strain the liquid.
Once the majority of the bones are removed, I strain the liquid into another large pot.

Step 10: You can skim the fat, or not…
Personally, I don’t skim the fat–but you could if you want to.

Step 11: Chill the broth. 
Here is the deal: you want to get the broth as cold as possible as fast as possible. Making huge batches makes this harder to do. You want to cool it down as fast as possible for health and safety reasons. I used to put it outside in the winter (enclosed of course) or let it cool down naturally. I’ve since learned that is NOT the safest thing to do. So now I dump in a load of ice, cool it down, put some in the fridge so we can drink it and leave enough in the pot to start a soup.

Honestly, I can’t rave enough about bone broth.

Our toddlers love and crave healthy food and they can never get enough soup. When I was student, I swear, “drink bone broth” became my go-to for so many ailments. Here are just a few of the reasons I love bone broth:

• Bone broth can help with the common cold and flu.
• Minerals in the bone broth are easily and readily available to be absorbed by the body.
• Bone broth is grounding.
• Bone broth can help heal a leaky gut (this is really big for epilepsy because many believe that neurological disorders have a lot to do with the brain/gut connection).
• The gelatin in bone broth helps with joints, nail and hair growth, and skin.
• Bone broth is great for detoxing. In fact, I’ve done many bone broth fasts which have been very therapeutic.
• Bone broth is packed and loaded with minerals, vitamins and amino acids.

I can go on… just drink it, it nourishes the soul–or don’t. Up to you.

Bone broth and epilepsy

There have been lots of mixed theories about bone broth and epilepsy. Some say bone broth might not be great for you if you have epilepsy because of glutamic acid (glutamate) which accumulates the longer you cook the broth. In Jay’s case, he does not have a reaction to it and we notice a significant reduction in seizures when he is constantly having bone broth. If he were to have MSG on the other hand, nerotoxin, I would need pages and pages to write out all the side effects…. so let’s keep going, I can always circle back.

Another fear about epilepsy and bone broth is glyphosate in collagen. As a Horticulturist and Holistic Nutritionist this is one of the reasons we bought our own property to farm our own food. At least we can reduce the risk of crap getting into our food sources. To learn more about this, click this link, then go down the rabbit hole and buy your own farm…or buy your meat, fruits and vegetables with someone you can shake hands with and visit their farms.

So in a nut shell, we love bone broth and lots of soups! What do you add to your homemade bone broth?

Becky

Becky is a Clinical Hypnotherapist, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Landscape & Production Horticulturist, Arborist and budding Herbalist, who recognizes and specializes in the link between healthy soil, the gut and the brain. She also loves being the mom to her two wild and crazy kids Brooke & Connor whom keep her and her ever loving, creative husband Jay on their toes.