Here are the top seven reasons why everyone should make bone broth a part of their daily diet:
- It’s an excellent source of minerals, improving hydration and encouraging weight loss. Our modern diet is lacking in minerals, and bone broth is a dense source of electrolytes and macro and micro minerals. Ingesting bone broth – which is so protein rich and nutrient-dense – before a meal reduces caloric intake at the next meal.
- It’s beneficial for joints because it’s a rich source of glucosamine and chondroitin, two of the more commonly self-prescribed supplements I see clients taking in my practice. Why pop another pill when you can get greater benefit from a real food?
- The nutrients in bone broth are easily absorbable. It’s one thing to consume nutrients – either through our diet or supplements; It’s an entirely different thing for those nutrients to actually make it through the intestine and into our cells. The nutrients in bone broth are bioavailable, so they pass easily through the intestinal wall without a lot of work from our digestive system.
- Bone broth is a powerful repair for the digestive system. Bone broth is rich in minerals and aminos that support the immune system and contains healing compounds like collagen, glutamine, glycine and proline. Studies show that many of the amino acids in bone broth (such as cystine, histidine, and glycine) reduce inflammation, and L-glutamine specifically reduces gut inflammation. The collagen in bone broth helps heals your gut lining and also reduces intestinal inflammation. Bone broth is a great source of arginine, a heart-smart amino
- The amino acids in bone broth can help stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Muscle protein synthesis is essential for the ongoing growth, repair, and maintenance of skeletal muscle groups. In a study looking at healthy patients and ovarian-cancer patients, researchers found that ingesting amino acids helped stimulate muscle protein synthesis and reduced inflammation, both in healthy participants and participants undergoing cancer therapy.
- It makes food taste really, really good. Any soup, stew, or sauce made from a base of homemade broth is a very different thing from that made from broth out of a can, box, or (gasp!) from a bouillon cube diluted in water – no matter how “natural” or “organic” the package professes its contents to be.
- From the inside to the outside – bone broth will improve skin texture and elasticity, improve the condition of hair and nails and strengthen teeth
and the best for last: Your diet influences your gut bacteria, and your gut bacteria influences your brain. The makeup of gut bacteria, called your microbiome, influences how the brain is wired from infancy to adulthood, along with moods, memory, the ability to learn, and how to deal with stress. When the gut microbiome is healthy it sends happy signals to the brain; when it’s unhealthy it can send mixed signals or signals of anxiety.
Because of this signaling, neuroscientists are starting to investigate how to manage gut bacteria to treat mood and stress-related disorders such as depression.
Biologists says that the degenerative and inflammatory diseases on the rise in industrialized societies could be corrected by the use of gelatin-rich foods due to the presence of restorative amino acids such as glycine, alanine, proline, and hydroxyproline. (see Gaps Diet)