Beef Bone Broth (Stock) : Nutritional facts and recipe

I would like to dispel some of the controversy.

Recently there is a bit of a media frenzy about Pete Evans’ new book launch. The focus of the controversy is his baby formula based on bone broth and liver. I have not seen his proposed formula recipe, as he book is not published yet, so I cannot comment on it from a professional point of view, in terms of quantities of ingredients and Vitamin A dose.

I would like to comment on home made baby formulas though. It appears that the media is treating this as a new and dangerous practice.

I came across home made baby formula recipes years ago through the Weston Price Foundation. Check out their home made baby formula recipes here. You can read positive parental feedback here.

The history of these types of formulas is that they have been used by mums, the world over, who weren’t able to breast feed due to illness or other issues. Home made formulas can utilise dairy; some of the recipe’s advise raw milk that is illegal in Australia, and others suggest goats milk, or bone broth formulas for babies who cant tolerate dairy. I am encouraging you not to be discouraged by the recent media scare and to consider trying some of the long-tried traditional baby formulas with confidence.

In my nutritional teaching I always advise people to add bone broth into their diet. You can use bone broth not only as a base for baby formulas, but also for soups and sauces, or just to have by itself. Bone Broth is a staple in the GAPS diet, which aims to heal your gut and restore digestive health. Below is a recipe for beef bone broth.

Some of the nutritional advantages of bone broth are :

• Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons–stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.
• Traditionally bone broth was used to help to cure many aliments. When broth is cooled, it congeals due to the presence of gelatin. The use of gelatin as a therapeutic agent goes back to the ancient Chinese. Gelatin was universally acclaimed as a most nutritious foodstuff. Gelatin was found to be useful in the treatment of a long list of diseases including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases and jaundice. Babies had fewer digestive problems when gelatin was added to their milk. The American researcher Francis Pottenger pointed out that as gelatin is a hydrophilic colloid, which means that it attracts and holds liquids, it facilitates digestion by attracting digestive juices to food in the gut. Even the epicures recognized that broth-based soup did more than please the taste buds. “Soup is a healthy, light, nourishing food” said Brillant-Savarin, “good for all of humanity; it pleases the stomach, stimulates the appetite and prepares the digestion.”
• Bone broth when served with its fat will also carry many fat soluble vitamins such as vit A,D, E, and K.

Beef Bone Broth Recipe

(For approx. 2-4 litre’s)

Ingredients

• 6 kg beef bones consisting of meaty bones and bone cartilage coming from joints and tendons
• 1 onions
• 1 carros medium sized
• 1 stick celery
• 1/2 leek
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• Stalk of 1 bunch of parsley
• 2-3 bay leafs
• 1-tablespoon of peppercorns
• water to cover

Method

• Firstly to clean the Bones you will need to bring a pot of 3-4 litres of water to boil, add the bones and meat and boil for 2-3 minutes. Strain the water of.
• Now take the bones and place them in 6-7 litres of fresh water and bring to the boil again.
• As soon as the liquid is boiling reduce to a minimum so the liquid only simmers or slightly bubbles.
• After a few minutes of boiling a greyish protein foam will assemble on the top.
• Skim the foam with a small ladle and repeat this process every 10-15 minutes for the first hour of cooking.
• Simmer for up to 12 hours on a very low heat and assure the bones are always covered with water (add water from time to time).
• In-between wash the leek, celery and carrot.
• Peel the garlic but not the onion (the onion skin will give the stock a lovely golden colour).
• Chop all the vegetables roughly.
• Next add the spices, herbs and vegetables and simmer for another 30-45 minutes.
• Turn off the heat and let it stand for 10 minutes.
• Now strain the stock carefully with a ladle through a sieve (do not pour because a lot of the vegetables and meat particle could be dissolved again and turn the broth cloudy).

Note; If you do not skim the protein foam it will turn the stock cloudy as it would after a while dissolve again sink to the bottom and turn the stock slightly bitter and cloudy (this applies as well for chicken and fish stock).

Adding the vegetables and spices at a later stage will guarantee maximum flavour, if added too early vegetables and spices will overcook and will release their best flavour far to early and so the broth will loose a lot of its fresh flavour.