It's probably been a month or more since I've made any and really, I've consumed so much broth in the last 6 months, it was starting to make me a bit queasy.
I usually use the remnants of a chicken I've either made or purchased (thank you Costco Bachelor Chickens for being so convenient). Most of the time though, the broth won't gel.
Why is this important, you may wonder? Well, it's a good sign that the collagen and gelatin have leached from your carcass and are readily available for your body to utilize. It's actually a sign of a good broth. If you get it to gel, you've done a great job.
I've found the key to getting a good gel pretty much every time is using chicken feet.
I read about it in Nourishing Traditions.
I was a bit off put by the idea of putting a bunch of feet in my broth.
But I went to the market in Justin's neighborhood and purchased a package of feet (this was a few years back and chicken feet are remarkably hard to find - if you are looking, check your local Asian or Hispanic market. You'll be hard pressed to find them at Safeway or Raley's).
I threw those feet in with my carcass and veggies and let it simmer away. It didn't seem any different until it cooled down.... Chicken Jello.
Since that time, chicken jello has become a staple of my diet. When I started AIP back in January, I was consuming broth with every meal. I had considered GAPS, which used broth based soups for every meal, but wasn't that willing to commit.
I can say with pretty good certainty that my joint health is markedly better when I am getting a good and continuous source of gelatin and collagen. I don't sound like a bowl of rice crispies when I move. Lay off the broth for a while and it's back to snap, crackle and pop.
It also is a great food to soothe your intestines and help improve digestion.
But when you are drinking that much broth, it gets old. Fast.
Enter gelatin.
It blends in pretty easily to whatever I'm drinking. I add it to cold beverages, hot beverages and the like. It seems to blend in pretty easily if you add it to a small amount of room temperature liquid before adding it to hot or cold liquids.
I'm drinking it three times a day currently to see if it has similar effects. I'll let you know how it goes. If my knees stop making a snapping noise, I'd say we're good. (the snapping sounds far more painful that in actually is)
I found this list at my mom's house the other day. This was the list I went to my doctor with in 2011 outlining the pain I was in (and had been in for as long as I could remember). I'm glad to say that it's 2013 and aside from the occasional flare up (usually of my shoulder or hip), I'm free of most of those symptoms.
Might I add that I'm not taking ANY NSAIDS or anti-inflammatory medications for probably the first time in my adult life. Through diet and lifestyle changes, I've managed to turn all of this around (though it's still hard to straighten my hair - so I don't).
No comments:
Post a Comment