I want to start off by apologizing about not posting as soon as I had originally planned. It’s been a nasty, wet, cloudy winter here in my little corner of Tennessee, and I’ve been laid up with whatever nasty virus has been going around for the past several weeks. This, added to the usual pile of school work and reading that covers my desk (and floor and bed) has kept me pretty squarely off the web till roughly 10 A.M. this morning.

During winters like these, it seems almost impossible for me to maintain any sense of good health for longer than about 20 minutes at a time before being drowned by cough drops and the piles of cheap generic toilet paper used to stem the tide of mucus trying to make it out of each and every opening in my head. Productivity goes out the window with my sense of self-esteem as I wander around the house in my underwear, hot tea in one hand, decongestant in the other, just hoping that tomorrow might spell an end to the suffering. During these periods it’s incredibly difficult to make sure to eat well and pack in all the nutrition that a person in this state needs to make it back to the land of the living. Appetite and mood have both crashed through the floor, and I’m getting about as much sunlight as the average mushroom. Crucial moments like these demand nutrient dense foods that are easy to prepare, and even more importantly, are easy on the stomach.

My favorite candidate in such a scenario is bone broth. It’s easy to just leave in a slow cooker and ignore, and it’s jam-packed with nutrition. Cooking animal bones low and slow releases not just a wide variety of vitamins and minerals such as calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and potassium, but also infuses the broth with a great deal of collagen. Collagen is a protein that is present in many of the body’s connective tissues. It is present in skin, hair, nails, ligaments, and tendons, and provides them with the strength and elasticity they need to keep you looking and feeling your best. Collagen also helps with repairing or fending off leaky gut syndrome by shoring up gaps in the tight junctions of the gut lining. Leaky gut is rampant in people who eat a standard American diet, and has been linked to a myriad of health problems like autoimmune diseases, obesity, allergies, and mental illness, not to mention the many gastrointestinal conditions like IBS and celiac disease for which it is often directly responsible. Regularly having a cup or two of bone broth can help reverse and guard against these conditions as well as go a long way toward helping a person maintain good quality of life. Now if you prefer to sit on a couch moaning and enjoying a variety of well cultivated aches and pains all day, bone broth might not be the beverage for you. If you’re the kind of person who would rather spend time outdoors, playing with your kids, or riding horses shirtless on the beach, maybe give bone broth a try once in a while and see how you feel.

Unfortunately, as a college student, I rarely have the time or energy to put into deboning an animal and preparing a truly traditional bone broth. This is where I generally head to my local health food store in the hopes that someone has already done the work for me and stocked the shelves with a selection of responsibly sourced options. If you don’t live in some kind of “holler” with banjo music eerily echoing overhead there should be a decent selection at your local market or health food store. My personal favorite is Bonafide brand bone broth. Their ingredients list is short – and more importantly, pronounceable, and the flavor and quality beats anything else I’ve tried in recent memory. Now this being said, up until a few months ago, every preparation of bone broth that I tried, whether it was store-bought or I made it myself, always seemed to end up tasting bland and leaving me feeling more than a little underwhelmed. Finally, after asking around to confirm that other people were in fact having the same issue and that I wasn’t altogether losing my sense of taste, I started to really sock the salt and herbs to my mineral rich mid-morning pick-me-up. The change was drastic and immediate. Not only did this once bland concoction taste incredible, but I was actually looking forward to my daily dose; and what’s more important, each cup I finished left me feeling amazing. It took a little while to strike upon a good general formula, but eventually I found that some sautéed garlic and onion, a surprising amount of salt, and a few common herbs and spices made for a good base for adding flavor and nutritive value.

Ingredients

• 1 24 Fluid Ounces Bone Broth
• 2 tbsp ghee, grass-fed butter, or coconut oil
• 2 Cloves Garlic – crushed
• 1 Tbsp minced onion
• 2 tsp salt (or more to taste)
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp Chili Powder
• 1.5 tsp oregano
• 1.5 tsp thyme

Optional

• 1 tsp turmeric or curry powder or,
• 1 tsp rosemary, or
• 1/8 tsp cayenne

Directions

1. Melt the fat in a small sauce pan. Then add garlic and onion with half the salt, and sauté until they start to caramelize. 
2. Add bone broth, salt, pepper, and the rest of the spices, adding extra salt, pepper, and other herbs to taste.
   1. I use what some would probably call an irresponsible amount of salt in here, but from what I’ve found, it really improves the flavor. And if you’re eating any kind of low carb diet or are fairly active, it can also be a great way to replenish electrolytes.
   2. I also recommend experimenting with the spices you use from day to day to keep things interesting, and find what tastes best for you.
3. Heat broth, stirring occasionally until it begins to boil.
4. Remove from heat, pour into an appropriately sized cup, and enjoy.