Benefits of Bone Broth: The Anti-Inflammatory Super Food
By Donna Maria Alexander, Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist
Have you ever wondered why the first recommendation when you are sick is to eat a bowl of chicken noodle soup? While there are healing powers within this delicious meal, they definitely don’t come from the noodles but are instead found in the broth.
Bone broth, the base of this soup, contains powerful nutrients for recovery; in short, they boost your immune system, what’s responsible for speeding up the rate at which you recover from a cold or flu.
What is Bone Broth?
This broth is made from chicken, fish, beef, and lamb, and many of the animals’ constituent parts are used as well: bones, bone marrow, ligaments, tendons, skins, and feet.
Simmering these animal components for days releases their healing nutrients (a note: not all purchased animal-based broths are authentic bone broths; avoid cubed/instant chicken packets, for example; essentially, they are seasoned water, meaning they lack all the benefits introduced above).
Bone broth’s nutrients:
When you consume bone broth, your body absorbs large quantities of collagen, proline, glycine, glutamine, glycosaminoglycans, glucosamine, hyaluronic acid, minerals, and electrolytes; these nutrients are powerful, optimizing one’s health, healing, and recovery, and below I’ll explain their various roles.
How do these nutrients benefit your body?
Collagen:
Looking for a way to boost your physical appearance without the need for expensive creams? Collagen makes the skin vibrant and glowing and reduces the production of fine lines, loose skin, and it helps keep the skin moisturized. Not only does it improve your outer health and beauty, but it also holds together your bones and muscles, protects your organs, and provides structure to your joints and tendons.
Proline:
An amino acid that’s responsible for the formation of collagen within bone broth. Proline will boost your immune system, repair the gut, speed up muscle recovery after a workout, repair damaged skin, and boost the antioxidants in your body.
Glycine:
An amino acid responsible for improving hormone production and imbalances; it increases enzyme production, aids in recovery, and enhances the growth rate of tissues in the body. Although your body can naturally produce this amino acid, you can drastically improve your health and support many health related issues by consuming additional amounts.
Glutamine:
This amino acid helps you lose weight, burn fat, and build muscle; it improves digestive and brain health, treats a very common gut misalignment—leaky gut—and boosts athletic performance as well.
Glycosaminoglycans as essential molecules in the body:
One, in particular, chondroitin sulfate, is a component of human connective tissue found in our cartilage and bone; we can supplement it in our body through animal cartilage, and many studies claim that chondroitin sulfate reduces pain, acts as an anti-inflammatory, improves joint function, and slows the progression of osteoarthritis (OA).
Glucosamine:
Known as one of the top supplements on the market for arthritis sufferers, glucosamine also comes with additional health benefits; it’s an anti-inflammatory and improves gut health. When glucosamine upgrades the gut’s health, it also boosts the immune system; 80% of your immune system is determined within your gut.
Hyaluronic Acid:
Large amounts of hyaluronic acid are located in your skin, connective tissues, and eyes, and it helps retain water in the body to keep your tissues lubricated. Some of the biggest names in the modeling/fashion industry are well aware of the benefits of hyaluronic acid and often apply it to their faces to boost their skins’ health. Ingesting hyaluronic acid will help your body stay flexible and slow down the process of aging.
Electrolytes and Minerals:
Sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, and phosphate carry electrical charges known as ions; these are responsible for stimulating muscles and nerves, and without enough electrolytes/minerals in the body, the brain/nervous system and heart/circulatory system would shut down.
Have you ever experienced a racing heart at night? This could be due to a lack of potassium in the body. Potassium is known as the body’s “natural tranquilizer and relaxer.”
How about white marks on your nails? This may be due to a calcium deficiency.
Do you get eye twitching regularly? This could be a magnesium deficiency. Magnesium functions to relax your muscles, and it plays a role in digestion and elimination.
Minerals and micronutrients are essential for your body’s health; every single cell relies upon them. Minerals fuel the powerhouse of each cell, the mitochondria, and when the mitochondria are fatigued due to a lack of essential minerals, the body becomes fatigued.
All health issues stem from your cells being malnourished at the mitochondrial level, so consuming additional minerals when you are run down, sick, or sleep deprived is a great way to speed up the healing process of your body and boost your energy naturally.
Summary:
Bone broth has a wide range of health benefits, making it an exceptional addition to your daily regimen. It boosts your immune system, repairs your gut, improves muscle recovery and athletic performance, aids in hormone and enzyme production, increases the energy of your cells, hydrates the tissues in your body, mitigates pain from arthritis, reduces inflammation systematically, promotes weight and fat loss, and, it restores your outer physical appearance by improving the health of your skin.
You can make bone broth at home, but if you are looking to consume it daily and conveniently, you may want to purchase it from a food supplier; they always stock freshly made broths.
