I've long heard about bone broth but as it involves cooking for at least 20-24 hours, it never appealed to me. Until recently, I came across the article again and found out it was actually very nutritious and beneficial, especially for dogs like mine.
Here are some of the benefits.
01/ It's good for joints.
Bone broth contains super amazing amounts of glucosamine. It’s also packed with other joint protecting compounds like chondroitin and hyaluronic acid. These glycosaminoglycans are resistant to digestion and are absorbed in their intact form. They act like hormones, stimulating cells called fibroblasts, which lay down collagen in the joints, tendons, ligaments, and even the arteries.
02/ It helps the liver detox.
The liver is the master organ of detoxification. The dog’s liver is under a lot of stress daily as the poor dog consumes commercial foods with toxic and synthetic ingredients, and/or suffers through toxic dewormers, flea and tick preventives, drugs, antibiotics, vaccines and more.
The liver's capacity to detoxify is limited by the availability of the amino acid glycine. Bone broth has tons of that!
03/ It promotes a healthy gut.
The lining of the intestines contains millions of tiny holes that allow the passage of digested nutrients to enter the body. Stress, poor diet and bacterial overgrowth can cause more holes to open or to become bigger, allowing things to pass through that aren't meant to. Such as undigested food and toxins. The body sees these as foreign invaders and start to attack them. This is how allergies and food sensitivities develop.
Bone broth is loaded with a gooey substance that can plug up those leaky holes: gelatin!
Plug it up! This is exactly what I was hoping to achieve. *prays hard*
04/ It's great nutrition for sick dogs.
When there is plenty of gelatin in the diet, the body’s need for protein from meat sources can be reduced by as much as fifty percent! It is an excellent source of important minerals and can bolster the immune system.
It is also loaded with glycine (as mentioned above), which aids digestion by helping to regulate the synthesis of bile salts and secretion of gastric acid.
(Credit:
Dogs Naturally)
So how do you make bone broth? Same as any other Chinese soup - dump all the ingredients in and boil. Lol.
Step 1. I used my mum's slow cooker so I could have it cook for at least 20 hours. She's done that before so I suppose it's safer than using the stove. Underestimated the size of the pot so I bought too many bones. Made a full pot instead of a trial run. =X
Step 2. I used lots of chicken feet, a couple of chicken bones, plus an extra black chicken neck and a pork rib which I had bought to let Popo try but freaked out in the end. Ahem. Best to use raw bones with lots of cartilage!
Step 3. I added some carrots and wolfberries. Er. Just because.
Step 4. Add vinegar. It helps to draw out the minerals from the bones. I used Braggs apple cider vinegar. No idea what's the correct amount but I added 4 tablespoons cos it looked like quite a lot of bone.
Step 5. Add water. You're supposed to add just enough to cover everything but obviously here it's barely enough. Oops.
Step 6. I turned it on High for an hour, before switching to Low for the rest of it.
You can see how the broth progresses.
Mashed up all the bones after taking the last pic and let it simmer for a few more hours. Here's the final result! (A few trays are already in the freezer, hence the quantity.)
Make sure to skim the oil off and remove all the bones! If they're soft enough I think you can blend them into a bone smoothie, but mine went in the trash. Lol. The broth all went into the freezer in batches. This pot, surprisingly, can probably last my silly girl only 1 to 1.5 months. If you add less bones and more water obviously you can make more to last longer. =)
I tasted it myself by the way. It was surprisingly bland and tasteless, despite the carrots and wolfberries. (DO NOT ADD SALT OR MSG!) Probably because chicken feet isn't really that sweet? Maybe if you use pork ribs it'll become a doggy version of
bak kut teh lmao.
