Bone broths (or stocks) are a basic for a Weston Price foundation style diet, and for the GAPS protocol.
They are a good source of minerals and amino acids, and aid digestion.
For more information on the benefits of broth, see this article on the WAPF website. It also has full recipes for classic beef, chicken and fish stocks, towards the bottom of the page. Have a read of this article and familiarise yourself with the full recipes before reading the summary below.
The classic recipes above use a variety of bones, plus vegetables and seasonings for flavour, and are simmered for several hours (4+ for fish, 6+ for poultry and 12+ for beef).
- For beef stock (or other red meats), you need a combination of meaty bones for flavour, marrow bones and knuckle bones.
- For poultry, use a full carcass or a whole bird. If you use the whole bird, simmer for 2-3 hours, just till the meat is cooked. Then take that off the bones, and put aside, and simmer the bones for a few more hours.
- For fish, ideally use all the bones and the head.
After simmering, pour the contents into a colander to seperate out the bones. Take any meat off the bones to use later. If you're doing GAPS, you may also want to put the skin, fat, etc into a separate bowl for adding back to your soup.
Let the stock cool, then refrigerate it. You can then take the fat off the top if you want a clear soup, or leave it on if you want to make a thicker, higher calorie GAPS soup.
GAPS Intro soup
If you're going to turn your stock into vegetable soup, you can simplify the basic recipes by leaving the vegetables out of the initial stock.
When you're doing stage 1 of the GAPS intro - you need to use all the meat, fat and marrow in your soup, to give you enough sustenance.
Make your stock as usual, using quite meaty cuts. Cook till the meat or chicken is just cooked, then take the meat off the bones and put to one side. I like to have three bowls - one for meat; one for fat, skin, marrow, any gelatinous bits, etc; and one for the bones. The meat and fats go into the fridge. The bones go back into the pot with a splash of apple cider vinegar and cook for a few hours more.
When you're ready to make your soup, pour into a clean pan through a colander, and throw the bones away. In the classic stock recipe, you would then skim the liquid fat off the top, but we need it in this soup.
Chop up your veges and cook in the stock till tender. Choose low starch veges like pumpkin, butternut, zucchini, onion, garlic, carrots, etc.
Then get your bowl of fatty bits out of the fridge and add it back to the soup. Take a wand blender and blend till everything is combined, and you have a thick creamy soup. Add salt to taste. Shred the meat and add it back to the soup.
This will be your main food while on the early stages of GAPS Intro.
Variations: I like this variation as it "hides" the fat and the veges, which some children (and adults for that matter) don't like. But you can leave your veges chunky, and have the fatty bits loose, if you prefer.
