Easy Chicken Broth Recipe from Dr. Mercola's website

      Since we are now in the cold and flu season it seems good to post this excerpt from an article on Dr. Mercola's website.  It appears to be an easy way to help us avoid  sickness and to recover quickly when we become sick.  
     How many of you make your own chicken broth these days?  In the article, Dr. Mercola says that chicken broth made from the carcass(bones) of chicken is one of the most nutritious and healing substances we can be eating.  I guess our ancestors had figured that out years ago since chicken broth/soup was one of the first foods they offered to sick people.
       I have included an excerpt from the article with the recipe Dr. Mercola recommends for homemade chicken broth.  I was interested to see the addition of vinegar and the explanation of why it was included.  You can read the entire article here.

. . . Easy Chicken Broth Recipe

. . . Both featured articles include a sample recipe for homemade chicken broth. The following recipe was provided by Sally Fallon, writing for the Weston A. Price Foundation.⁶ Her article also contains a recipe for beef and fish broth. (You could also use turkey, duck, or lamb, following the same basic directions.) For Dr. Myers’ chicken broth recipe, please see the original article.⁷

Perhaps the most important caveat when making broth, whether you’re using chicken or beef, is to make sure they’re from organically-raised, pastured or grass-fed animals. As noted by Fallon, chickens raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) tend to produce stock that doesn’t gel, and this gelatin has long been valued for its therapeutic properties.⁸ As explained by Fallon:

“Gelatin was universally acclaimed as a most nutritious foodstuff particularly by the French, who were seeking ways to feed their armies and vast numbers of homeless in Paris and other cities. Although gelatin is not a complete protein, containing only the amino acids arginine and glycine in large amounts, it acts as a protein sparer, helping the poor stretch a few morsels of meat into a complete meal.”

Besides that, CAFO animals are fed an unnatural diet that is not beneficial for their intestinal makeup, and they’re also given a variety of veterinary drugs and growth promoters. You don’t want any of these potentially harmful additives in your broth, so make sure to start off with an organically-raised product.

Ingredients for homemade chicken broth

1 whole free-range chicken or 2 to 3 pounds of bony chicken parts, such as necks, backs, breastbones, and wings

Gizzards from one chicken (optional)

2-4 chicken feet (optional)

4 quarts cold filtered water

2 tablespoons vinegar

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped

3 celery stalks, coarsely chopped

1 bunch parsley

Please note the addition of vinegar. Not only are fats are ideally combined with acids like vinegar, but when it comes to making broth, the vinegar helps leech all those valuable minerals from the bones into the stockpot water, which is ultimately what you’ll be eating. The goal is to extract as many minerals as possible out of the bones into the broth water. Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar is a good choice as it’s unfiltered and unpasteurized.

Cooking Directions

There are lots of different ways to make bone broth, and there really isn’t a wrong way. You can find different variations online. Here, I’ll offer some basic directions. If you’re starting out with a whole chicken, you’ll of course have plenty of meat as well, which can be added back into the broth later with extra herbs and spices to make a chicken soup. I also use it on my salad.

1. Fill up a large stockpot (or large crockpot) with pure, filtered water. (A crockpot is recommended for safety reasons if you have to leave home while it’s cooking.)
2. Add vinegar and all vegetables except parsley to the water.
3. Place the whole chicken or chicken carcass into the pot.
4. Bring to a boil, and remove any scum that rises to the top.
5. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and let simmer.
6. If cooking a whole chicken, the meat should start separating from the bone after about 2 hours. Simply remove the chicken from the pot and separate the meat from the bones. Place the carcass back into the pot and continue simmering the bones for another 12-24 hours and follow with step 8 and 9.
7. If cooking bones only, simply let them simmer for about 24 hours.
8. Fallon suggests adding the fresh parsley about 10 minutes before finishing the stock, as this will add healthy mineral ions to your broth.
9. Remove remaining bones from the broth with a slotted spoon and strain the rest through a strainer to remove any bone fragments.

Bone Broth—A Medicinal ‘Soul Food’

Simmering bones over low heat for an entire day will create one of the most nutritious and healing foods there is. You can use this broth for soups, stews, or drink it straight. The broth can also be frozen for future use. Keep in mind that the "skin" that forms on the top is the best part. It contains valuable nutrients, such as sulfur, along with healthful fats, so just stir it back into the broth.

Bone broth used to be a dietary staple, as were fermented foods, and the elimination of these foods from our modern diet is largely to blame for our increasingly poor health, and the need for dietary supplements.

Both broth and fermented foods, such as fermented veggies, are simple and inexpensive to make at home, and both also allow you to make use of a wide variety of leftovers. When you add all the benefits together, it’s hard to imagine a food that will give you more bang for your buck.