Homemade Chicken Broth

Chicken broth is incredibly easy to make. It's almost mindless when you have a slow cooker. The best part about using a whole chicken is that I also use the meat to make other meals like chicken pot pie or enchiladas. Homemade broth is vastly different from the store bought stuff which is little more than chicken flavored salt water. You know it's good for you when you put it in the fridge for a day or two and it gets jiggly like jello. All the gelatin concentrated in the broth is vital for your joint/tendon, skin, and hair health. It also soothes digestion and gets things moving. It also stimulates the immune system, regulates hormones, and is a natural anti-inflammatory. Got some aches and pains? Heat up some of this and drink it instead of your morning coffee and start your day off feeling well. If I have broth on hand, I drink about 4 oz. with each meal to promote digestion.

Here's the recipe (from Nourishing Traditions):

• 1 whole organic pastured chicken or 2-3 pounds chicken bones with or without bits of meat, including feet and organs if you have them (I go to my farmers market and find "broth packs" that include necks and feet which make the broth very gelatinous)
• 4 quarts filtered water
• 2 T vinegar
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped (I omit if I don't have one)
• 2 carrots coarsely chopped  (I omit if I don't have any)
• 3 celery sticks, coarsely chopped (I omit if I don't have any)

Slow cooker directions:

Place everything in slow cooker and let sit for half an hour.  Cook on high for 6 to 12 hours (Depending on how much time I have or when I need the broth/meat). The longer it cooks, the more nutrient-dense the broth will be. See step 2 and 3 in stovetop directions for final instructions.

After it's done, I fish out the chicken with a slotted spoon, take the meat off and reserve it for other meals. Sometimes I also reserve the veggies for dishes like pot pie.

Stovetop Directions:

1. Put chicken and/or chicken parts in a pot, add the water, vinegar and vegetables. Let sit for a half hour, then bring to a boil and remove the scum/foam that rises to the top with a spoon. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 6 to 12 hours. 
2. Remove chicken with a slotted spoon and reserve meat for other meals.
3. Strain the stock into a large bowl. Pour into mason jars (fill below the part of the jar that starts to get narrow or else it may crack in freezer) or paper cups. Let the glass jars sit until they are pretty cool, then cover and freeze or refrigerate.  

A note on getting your broth to "gel" in your slow cooker:
There were times when my chicken broth wouldn't gel. I assumed it was because it was boiling too hard/long in my slow cooker. But then when it also didn't gel with the stovetop method, I knew something was up. Upon further investigation, I found that it had to do with the age and quality of the chicken or chicken parts. See below.


Tips for choosing the right chicken:

1. Buy a large bird that appears to have been alive for a good, long time. Avoid "young hens" because they won't have as much gelatin and fat needed to gel the broth.
2. Buy "pastured" birds or other equivalent labeling. This means the bird was outside a large portion of its' life and foraged for things like bugs and seeds which is the intended diet for chickens. If you can't find "pastured," look for "free range."Chances are you're going to have to buy from a local farm or go to a farmers market to find what you need.
3. Buy organic. Organic doesn't mean that a chicken spent its' life outdoors, foraging for food. It does mean you know that the chickens' diet was primarily made up of non-GMO soy and cornmeal.
4. If you must buy a plain, ol' chicken, make sure to research the acceptable living conditions. These birds spend most of their lives in a barn with no access to the outdoors, no opportunity to forage for their food and with thousands of unhealthy and/or dead dead chickens packed in around them. Watch the video below for some enlightenment on the issue.

This clip about chickens' living conditions is from the documentary, Food Inc.

Curing My Gluten Intolerance

When I was sixteen, I had to stop eating gluten. It made me utterly exhausted and caused countless unmentionable digestive issues.  In my first year of college, I realized I could no longer tolerate lactose either. Cutting out mozzarella cheese and ice cream was even more difficult than cutting out gluten. Eating strictly gluten and lactose free, I felt good for a while. College was quite busy…classes, working, unpaid internships, newly married, etc. Once I was a few years out and found a job that didn't keep me up at night, I had time to reevaluate how healthy I was feeling. And finally I realized I wasn't doing all that well. Most days, I'd be bloated and tired for hours after a meal. It’s as if my digestive system was robbing the rest of my body of its’ energy. I’m in my 20’s…shouldn’t I feel better than this? I’d ask myself this almost every day, throwing dozens of pity parties. If I’m avoiding the things I’m intolerant to, in theory I should be well, right?

After months of being totally obstinate to the idea, I decided to take sugar out of my diet, hoping it was the source of my problem.  I read Sally Fallon’s book, Nourishing Traditions, and became totally amused by what was in the food I was eating. The book educates one on the proper way to cook ingredients to get the most nutrients from them, the importance food pairing for optimal digestion, and the necessity for fermented, probiotic-rich foods at every meal. It became so enjoyable to eat yummy things and know what vitamins and minerals I was getting from them. I felt better but still not great.

Then one day, I saw my gluten-intolerant sister, Heather, butter up a wheat roll. It was Easter Sunday and I was all the way on the other end of the table, unable to ask what in the world she was doing to herself. She never cheats! After the meal, I demanded an explanation. We sat at the kitchen island and she explained that after years of not being able to tolerate gluten, she now could! She explained that about a year ago she had begun reading up on something called the GAPS diet. Following GAPS diet protocol, she took out all grains, starches, and refined sugars. I listened with intrigue, but knew it was not going to be something I woke up and started the next day. No corn chips, baked potatoes, hummus, or gluten free bagels? I wasn't so sure it was possible. I had done the no sugar thing for a month at this point, and that was nearly killing me. As awful and hard as it sounded, I couldn’t forget the fact that there could be light at the end of this carb and sugar free tunnel. I ordered the book and read through it over the next week.

The GAPS diet is similar to the Paleo diet, which excludes grains, dairy products, legumes, potatoes, refined sugar, and some others. The GAPS diet excludes grains, starchy vegetables and legumes, refined sugars, and basically anything that comes in a box (processed foods). Although I’m lactose intolerant, I can tolerate raw milk and aged cheese so I was thrilled to hear that the GAPS diet did not exclude dairy products. “GAPS” stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome, which was created to heal psychological and digestive disorders by nourishing the gut. Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, creator of the diet, argues that conditions like autism, schizophrenia, depression, and Celiac disease are a result of a malnourished digestion system.

This diet attempts to heal those all food intolerance if you follow the guidelines fully and I’m incredibly excited to see what happens. I should mention that this is a temporary diet with a focus on healing the digestive system and restoring it to proper functioning.

5 Healing Tools from the GAPS diet:

1)    Fermented Foods and Strong Probiotics (AKA good bacteria): Everybody’s gut has good bacteria and bad. If you’ve ever taken antibiotics to kill off an infection, consequently it killed both the good and bad bacteria. The bad bacteria feeds off refined sugars, starches, and simple carbohydrates. The good feeds off probiotic foods like yogurt and fermented foods (homemade sauerkraut, kimchi, whey, etc.). Why do we need probiotics? These good bacteria help the digestive system break down food and nourish the whole body, including the brain. Without enough good bacteria, our bodies can’t break down food and the undigested stuff becomes food for the bad bacteria.

2)    Homemade Broth: The gelatin and fat (the good kind) in homemade broth soothes and seals the lining of the gut, healing and restoring. Broth is also rich in vitamins and minerals. It has anti-bacterial properties—but does not disturb the beneficial bacteria. Store-bought broth is little more than salty, chicken-flavored water.

3)    Avoiding all grains, starchy vegetables and legumes, and refined sugars: This is the hard one! In order to repopulate the good bacteria in the gut, one mustn’t mobilize the enemy by choice. Eating starchy foods and refined carbs/sugars literally feeds the bad bacteria. Eating entirely grain free is temporary until your body has time to build up a healthy digestive system. Grains also promote inflammation which your gut needs a break from if you're experiencing gluten or another type of intolerance.

4)    Avoiding all processed foods: Go to your pantry and read the ingredients on any given package. Chances are you won't be able to pronounce at least one ingredient listed. Those unpronounceable things shouldn't be entering our bodies. These foods are engineered so that they take forever to rot. Consequently, they're going to be hard to digest and just plain dangerous for consumption. It takes a lot of time and energy to make all your own food. But it’s quite satisfying to lather a juicy burger in your own homemade mayo, topping it with some delicious homemade sauerkraut.

5)    Prayer: You won’t find this one in the book but I definitely would not have survived without God’s reassurance and strength. I firmly believe God designed my body to be able to eat gluten and lactose and that I won't be stuck with this intolerance forever.  I’ve had to pray everyday for self-control. At first, the sugar/ carb cravings were almost unbearable. Not to mention, for the first few weeks I avoided fruit and honey. I thought I would croak before surviving the cravings. But after awhile, they get better. And you learn to praise God for creating weird things that you never thought could be loved like CASHEWS and raisins. 

So here's to the journey! I'll keep you posted on what happens. Let me know if you've had breakthrough on the GAPS diet or another diet. I'd love some encouragement along the way!