My
Dr. of Oriental Medicine (DOM) explained to me that Bone Broth among other
things:
- Promotes
the rebuilding of bone, cartilage, and other structural injuries
- Supports
the immune system
- Supports
strength, evenness and restful sleep
Ryan,
Colson and I experienced all of these things, as detailed in the many posts of my
blog.
Now
I need to know why broth is so powerful. My almost six month old nephew is
severely vaccine injured, with life-threatening implications. My sister and her
husband, of whom I am incredibly proud, have quickly adopted a holistic
approach to healing. For most people, including me, that takes years. They did
it in only three weeks. They are very strong and their son is so fortunate to
have them.
To
further promote my nephew’s healing, I think he needs to come off of commercial
formula and switch to homemade. The question I have been pondering is whether a
bone broth based formula or a milk based formula is better. I am thinking bone
broth. My DOM will best be able to answer that question, but nonetheless I did
my own reading and reflection and learned quite a bit that applies to everyone.
The
points below are taken from the Weston A. Price Foundation’s article “Why Broth
is Beautiful” http://westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/brothisbeautiful.html.
This is a lengthy post, and I excerpted what I felt was immediately impactful
if you are pondering whether or not to make broth.
Thank
you Weston A. Price Foundation, for an incredible accumulation of knowledge!
Now, here we go:
"Good broth will resurrect the dead," says a
South American proverb.
Broth 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.
Gelatin, a component of broth, was found to be useful in
the treatment of a long list of diseases including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis,
diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice and cancer. Babies had
fewer digestive problems when gelatin was added to their milk.
Broth
contains glycine, which aids digestion by enhancing gastric acid secretion. Research
published in 1976 established that only proteins stimulate gastric acid
secretion, but apparently not all amino acids do so.16 Glycine is
one of those that do, a fact that was known in 1925. 17 The ability to digest protein obviously
plays a vital role in the maintenance of good health. Many popular health
writers, including Adelle Davis and Linda Clark, have identified problems
caused by widespread hydrochloric acid deficiencies, especially after the age
of 40. As Davis put it, "Too little hydrochloric acid impairs protein
digestion and vitamin C absorption, allows the B vitamins to be destroyed and
prevents minerals from reaching the blood to the extent that anemia can develop
and bones crumble."
More recently, Robert Atkins,
MD, has taken up the cry. "A lack of stomach acid is commonplace, the
result of aging, genetics, use of certain medications and a variety of other
factors." Citing 11 studies provided by his chief researcher Robert
Crayhon, Dr. Atkins contends that the inability to properly digest protein
contributes to asthma, diabetes, food allergies, osteoporosis, iron deficiency
anemia, pernicious anemia, candida, rheumatoid arthritis, intestinal
infections, psoriasis, vitiligo, hives, eczema, dermatitis, herpetiformis and
acne."20
Glycine also plays a vital
role in wound healing. In a study dating back to 1929, as well as more recent
studies, evidence points to "a narrow margin between the metabolic demand
for glycine and the rate at which glycine can be formed or made available in
the body. A marginal state of glycine availability is probably more common than
has been appreciated in the past."21 In other words, when the
body needs glycine for repair, it probably cannot make all it needs, and must
obtain additional glycine from the diet.
Children and pregnant women
also need goodly amounts of glycine in the diet. Research indicates that
glycine deficiency could limit growth in infants, and stated that the
"demands of the growing fetus for glycine are very high, in both absolute
terms and relative to other amino acids, two to ten times as great on a molar
basis." By optimizing the intake of this amino acid, the outcome of
pre-term infants could be improved.25
In addition, glycine is the
limiting amino acid in children recovering from malnutrition, and it is the
limiting amino acid for rapid growth.26 Furthermore, glycine status is an
important marker of normal pregnancy. "As pregnancy advances the
endogenous production of glycine may be insufficient to satisfy the increasing
demands."27
Another infant feeding study
showed that the sum of free amino acids in plasma increases after feeding and
the ratio of glycine to valine falls. The type of meal determines how quickly
this happens and how soon before normal levels are restored. Breast feeding as
opposed to formula feeding produced faster alteration as well as speedier
normalization.28
This explains why prior to the mid 20th century,
doctors recommended the addition of glycine-rich gelatin to the homemade infant
formulas that were used when breast feeding was not possible.29
Taken
together these studies strongly support the idea that if glycine is limited
during the early months of life, growth could be limited as well. And once children
grow up, the need for glycine does not diminish. As noted above, this little
amino acid serves many metabolic functions and is not automatically produced in
sufficient quantities by the body.
Confirming recent studies
showing that glycine helps infants grow properly, Gotthoffer reports the
existence of more than 30 years of research studies showing that gelatin can
improve the digestion of milk and milk products. Accordingly, nutrition
textbook writers of the 1920s and 1930s recommended that gelatin be included in
infant formulas to help bring cow’s milk closer to human milk. Gotthoffer’s
explanation was that the "curd obtained from the coagulation of woman’s
milk was softer and more easily digested than that of cow’s milk. However, when
gelatin was added to cow’s milk, a curd of equally desirable characteristics
was formed. In addition, gelatin exerted a very important influence on the milk
fat. It served not only to emulsify the fat but also, by stabilizing the
casein, improved the digestibility and absorption of the fat, which otherwise
would be carried down with casein in a lumpy mass." As a result, infants
fed gelatin-enriched formulas showed reduced allergic symptoms, vomiting,
colic, diarrhea, constipation and respiratory ailments than those on straight
cow’s milk.33
Likewise Gotthoffer found
studies showing that convalesing adults who have lost weight because of
operations, dysentery, cancer and other illnesses fare better if gelatin is
added to their diet. "It is said to be retained by the most sensitive
stomach and will nourish when almost nothing else will be tolerated,"
wrote L. E. Hogan in 1909.34 One reason gelatin was recommended so
highly for malnourished individuals was that it diminishes the amount of
complete protein needed by the body.
The "sparing"
effects of gelatin on protein were of particular interest to many early
researchers. By "sparing protein," they meant that the body is less
likely to cannabilize the protein stored in its own muscles, a common
occurrence during fasting or during rapid weight loss from illness. Gelatin
thus helps keep the body in what today’s nutritionists call "nitrogen
balance." As Carl Voit, a researcher who spent ten years studying gelatin,
wrote in 1872, "By being itself decomposed, it prevented the breakdown of
protein in the body and thus exerted its remarkable sparing powers." He
found that gelatin alone, however, was not able to build up protein supplies in
the body. 35
Gelatin
and Digestion
Voit also found that gelatin
improved digestion because of its ability to normalize cases of both
hydrochloric acid deficiencies and excesses, and was said to belong in the
class of "peptogenic" substances that favor the flow of gastric
juices, thus promoting digestion.36
Gelatin’s traditional
reputation as a health restorer has hinged primarily on its ability to soothe
the GI tract. "Gelatin lines the mucous membrane of the intestinal tract
and guards against further injurious action on the part of the ingesta,"
wrote Erich Cohn of the Medical Polyclinic of the University of Bonn back in
1905. Cohn recommended gelatin to people with "intestinal
catarrh"--an inflammation of the mucus membrane now called irritable bowel
syndrome. Interestingly, the type of gelatin used in follow-up experiments done
on people with even more serious intestinal diseases was specified as a
"concentrated calves foot broth."37 This form of gelatin
would have been rich in cartilage and bone and presumably provide a better
amino acid profile than straight collagen.
Today clinical nutritionists
see more and more cases of dysbiosis--imbalances of "good" and
"bad" bacteria in the intestinal tract. In that the fermentative
disturbances that result are linked to allergies to grains and/or excessive
carbohydrate consumption, it is fascinating to find that a researcher named
C.A. Herter spoke directly to that point back in 1908:
"The use of gelatin as a
foodstuff in bacterial infections of the intestinal tract has never received
the attention it deserves. The physician is not infrequently confronted with a
dietetic problem which consists in endeavoring to maintain nutrition under
conditions where no combination of the ordinary proteins with fats and
carbohydrates suffices to maintain a fair state of nutrition. The difficulty
which most frequently arises is that every attempt to use carbohydrate food is
followed by fermentative disturbances of an acute or subacute nature which
delay recovery or even favor an existing infection to the point of threatening
life. A great desideratum, therefore, is a food which, while readily undergoing
absorption, shall furnish a supply of caloric energy and which at the same time
shall be exempt from ordinary fermentative decomposition. Such a food exists in
gelatin."38
Though
they offered no explanation for this pathological occurrence, many clinical
nutritionists report that rheumatoid arthritis and degenerative joint diseases
reverse when priority is given to the healing of the GI tract and of
"leaky gut" syndrome (in which incompletely broken down proteins
cross the mucosal barrier and enter the bloodstream and tissues only to be
attacked by the immune system).
However,
gelatin is precisely what the turn-of -the-century doctors ordered, not only to
heal digestive disorders and the intestinal mucosa but all allergies. Gelatin
was even sometimes injected as a plasma or blood substitute.40 More recently,
John F. Prudden, MD, DSci discovered that therapeutic doses of cartilage (which
always contains copious amounts of proline and glycine) dramatically improved
rheumatoid arthritis as well as other degenerative joint conditions and
inflammatory bowel diseases.41
Doctors
of the past also once knew the value of gelatin in treating celiac disease. In
1924, a researcher named Haas stated that the response of patients to a low-carbohydrate
diet in which gelatin "milks" were given at the noon and evening
meals was "striking and almost uniformly good results were obtained over a
period of about ten years."43
Fifty
years ago Pottenger pointed out a reason that raw food diets can be so
effective in reversing disease and contributing to rejuvenation. "Man’s
food in the raw state consists largely of hydrophilic (water loving) colloids.
The heat of cooking on the other hand . . . precipitates the colloids of our
diet. This change in colloidal state alters the hydration capacity of our foods
so as to interfere with their ability to absorb digestive juices." Happily
for those who prefer their food cooked, Dr. Pottenger went on to explain that
this digestive problem could be easily remedied by adding one-half ounce to one
ounce of gelatin to a cooked meal of meat, potatoes, vegetables and fruits. 46
In
2000, Dr. Roland W. Moskowitz of Case Reserve University published the results
of his review of the literature on collagen hydrolysate in the treatment of
osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. He was particularly impressed with clinical
studies that suggested that 10 grams of pharmaceutical grade collagen
hydrolysate per day were enough to reduce pain in patients with osteoarthrisis
of the knee or hip and that gelatin held a significant treatment advantage over
the placebo. For bone patients, Moskowitz concluded that studies of the effects
of calcitonin (a hormone known to participate in calcium and phosphorus
metabolism with and without a collagen-hydrolysate-rich diet showed that
calcitonin plus the gelatin inhibited bone collagen breakdown far better than
calcitonin alone.52
Whatever
form of gelatin is used, it should never be cooked or reheated in the
microwave. According to a letter published in The Lancet, the common practice of
microwaving converts l-proline to d-proline. They write, "The conversion
of trans to cis forms could be
hazardous because when cis-amino
acids are incorporated into peptides and proteins instead of their trans isomers, this can
lead to structural, functional and immunological changes." They further
note that "d-proline is neurotoxic and we have reported nephrotoxic and
heptatotoxic effects of this compound."55 In other words, the
gelatin in homemade broth confers wonderous benefits, but if you heat it in the
microwave, it becomes toxic to the liver, kidneys and nervous system.
Remember
also that the amino acids in gelatin, like all amino acids, can only be
properly utilized when the diet contains sufficient fat-soluble
activators--vitamins A and D--found exclusively in animal fats. So don’t
hesitate to put cream in your broth-based soups and sauces, and include other
sources of vitamins A and D in your diet, such as butter, egg yolks and cod
liver oil.
In favor of gelatin are thousands of years of
historical reports and several hundred years of studies, most of which suggest
that gelatin-rich broth is the key to turning a quivering blob of ill health
into a sturdy specimen of good health. As the South American proverb puts it,
"Good broth can resurrect the dead."62
