By now, you you’ve heard me repeat the importance of good gut health as the foundation of you and your family's health. 

The gut houses around 70% of your immune system, controls your nervous system, allows adequate detoxing to occur and it needs to be in tip top shape for promoting balanced moods and hormone health. For little one's- the nourishment they receive and environment they are placed in for their first 2-3 years post birth, plays a crucial role in allowing their microbiome and gut health to establish and therefore set up their long term immune health.

What Can Go Wrong With Gut Health

When your body is exposed to factors such as stress, medications (particularly antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and the oral contraceptive pill) and inflammatory food and drinks on a regular basis, inflammation and a ‘leaky gut’ can develop.

To paint a picture of what leaky gut is like, imagine a fly screen with holes in it. This is what your small intestinal lining would look like in a case of leaky gut- allowing undigested food particles and toxins into the bloodstream, creating an inflammatory cascade and subsequently will over work your liver (to clean up the mess).

Healing leaky gut is a complex process. The overall aim is to address and overcome the culprit cause, improve overall digestion and introduce foods, herbs and supplements to allow healing to occur. 

So what is a simple way you can contribute to gut healing through your diet? Bring on the broth and meat stock!

An easy, economical and effective way to do this is to start consuming bone broths and meat stocks.

When bones and meats on the bone, from chicken, beef, lamb or fish are brought to the boil and reduced to simmer, minerals, among many other important gut healing nutrients and amino acids, are extracted from the bones and cartilage and into the liquid (broth/ meat stock). By using the broth and stock through your diet, you are giving yourself the full spectrum of minerals and amino acids. Beats a tablet, hey?!

Easy To Absorb

The other benefit of incorporating bone broths and meat stock into your diet, is their ability to aid digestion. Even if you are very digestive compromised, such as suffering from Irritable Bowel Disease, the vitamins, minerals and amino acids from the broth and stock are absorbed through the gut wall with ease.

This means more nutrients reach your cells, at a much faster rate than actually having to break down and digest foods. All for building your state of health and happiness. For these reasons, broth is one of the first 'solid' foods recommended for introducing your bubs' within the pages of my baby book, Thriving Bubba. 

Ability To Heal

Along with the high mineral and vitamin nutrient content, bone broths and meat stocks contain important nutrients, such as gelatin (cooked form of collagen) and the amino acid glycine, that can support the healing process of the gut wall. This is important for you if any digestive upsets such as constipation, diarrhoea, bloating, reflux, abdominal pains, or any other food intolerance symptoms occur.

Food intolerances are a sign of a leaky gut, that encourage the entry of undigested foods and unwelcome toxins, into the bloodstream, leading to  high levels of inflammation in the body.

Among strengthening your hair, skin and nails, adding bone broth and meat stock into your daily diet, is a powerful medicine for your digestive tract. Their use can help treat the condition of leaky gut, soothe inflammation and reverse food intolerance’s. Even if you don’t suffer from digestive upsets, don’t be so sure you are free from food intolerance’s. These can manifest, up to around a week after having the culprit food, in other ways, such as digestive upsets, sinus congestion, joint pain and fatigue.  

Make Your Own

Want to get started? Heres a a simple recipe guide for you to make up your very own liquid gold:

My Simple Broth Or Meat Stock Guide

What you’ll need:

A whole organic chicken/ chicken on the bone such as wings, drumsticks or chops/ chicken frame / whole fish/ fish bones/ organic lamb and/or organic beef meat bones, knuckles and joints*

If you're using just bones*, you'll make a bone broth, but if you incorporate some meat on the bones, you will create a next level healing meat stock. 

Note: If making chicken meat stock, add extra feet or necks (necks make for amazing flavour and feet make it collagen rich- you'll notice the gelatin wobble when it cools). 

A splash of organic apple cider vinegar (helps to extract the minerals from the bones but this is optional)

*You can use bones either pre roasted, fresh or frozen. An easy way to avoid wastage, is to keep bones left over after cooking them and freeze them until you have some time aside to make your broth.

10 peppercorns

1 tablespoon sea salt/ Himalayan salt (if making this for baby, reduce this to 1 tsp)

At least 4 litres filtered, or spring water (or fill your large pot 3/4 full)

Optional extras to add more flavour: non bitter vegetables and herbs, such as onion, turmeric, licorice root, chilli, coriander root, garlic, celery, leek, carrot, parsley, rosemary, oregano, thyme and bay leaves.

What to do:

• Put joints, frames, bones and any meat, of fish/ chicken/ beef/ ox tail/ lamb, into a large pot (or slow cooker). eg. whole chicken, chicken frame & feet; chicken frame & necks; chicken chops or wings. Cooking meat on the bone rather than a straight carcass/ frame/ bones, is called a meat stock- essentially you will consume the soft cooked meats with the stock for additional healing.
• Add peppercorns, salt (if making this for baby, you can leave out the salt), optional herbs and veg and fill with enough water to cover, but no more than 3/4 full. Heat to boil.
• Cover and then reduce heat to a simmer for 2-72 hours. For gut healing meat stock cook chicken for 2 hours; lamb 3-4 hours; beef 4-6 hours or until meat falls easily away from the bone.

The shorter cooked broth/ meat stock is better for healing your gut but longer cooks are higher in minerals. Personally, I prefer 2 hourly cooked chicken broth/ stock as my fav go to.

First note: I do find if I'm making a full dish from lamb shanks or beef ribs, between 6-8 hours is needed for a really tender melt in your mouth meal, so I'll bend the rules a little here.

Second note: if you have issues with histamine intolerance, it is critical to start out with making shorter cooked broths / stocks (eg a chicken stock cooked for 2 hours).

• Remove the bones, joints and meat.
• Pour the stock through a sieve to remove small bones and peppercorns. Optionally you can discard the scum that floats on the top of the stock, but keep the fat.
• You can get extra nourishment from extracting bone marrow from the larger meat bones. This provides nutrients which support the immune system. While they are still warm, bang the tubular bones on a wooden chopping board and add the marrow to the broth/ stock.

How to enjoy your Broth or Stock

Now its time to enjoy your liquid gold! Note, if you're starting out your bone broth journey, start with very small amounts (around 1 tablespoon), to avoid a strong detox reaction. Here are examples of adding broth into your day:

• Aim to eat any cooked meat from making your meat stock together with your meat stock (eg. see soup option below).
• Drink 1-3 cups, warm, per day between meals. I recommend adding seaweed salt for an iodine source (crucial for a healthy thyroid). This is my preferred method, for gut healing. Bubba has small amounts in her cup over the day and it's also mixed into her meals. Learn more about specific gut friendly guidelines for baby solid food introduction, here.

• Use as a stock with vegetables, herbs or meat in slow cooked dishes, curries and homemade gravies. I try to always have a couple of cups on hand in the fridge for this purpose. If I don't have any broth on hand, slow cooking meats on the bone (such as lamb shanks, osso bucco, beef ribs, chicken legs, or whole chicken) in water, salt and optimal herbs and veg, is another way of creating a broth as you go. 

• In the last 30 minutes of cooking your broth/ meat stock, add vegetables of your choice to make a soup, and add any cooked meat (if using a whole chicken or bones with meat), at the very end. Alternatively, you can make your soups as per the recipe and use your broth/ meat stock as you would when adding store bought stock. 
• The broth keeps for 3 days in the fridge, or 3 months in the freezer.

Want to know more ways you can support your little ones' gut and immune health. My baby book, Thriving Bubba includes it all. Use code WELLNESS for a special price today.