The Bone Broth Cook – Page 2 – Teaching You All You Need to Know About Bone Broth!

Health Benefits of Fresh Herbs and Spices

They make your food taste good but that is not their only virtue. Fresh herbs and spices are a complement to any diet. They can help keep your internal system functioning at peak performance. Down Memory Lane Before there were medicines like we have today, people lived off the land for their healing. Wise women and men in the community used their knowledge of herbs to aid in making medicinal preparations for those who were sick. It was not uncommon to see a poultice or a salve in a home. The mortar and pestle were common tools of the trade in healing. Nowadays we have pills and capsules, but they were based on the long ago teaching of herbs. Even if you don’t use herbs and some spices for your health care you can use them to keep your body healthy through a balanced diet. You eat them for the taste, but learning about the added health benefits of what you are sprinkling on your dinner is an added bonus. What you can Avoid with Herbs and Spices If you ask anyone, the most common “spices” on any table are salt and pepper. Our food could be doing so much better. There is an entire world of tastes, smells and textures just waiting for you. And, fresh herbs and spices are abundant. Why, just visit any farmer’s market and you can purchase a potted herb: rosemary, marjoram, thyme, oregano, dill, basil, lemon balm – and the list goes on. Just a few simple steps and you can have fresh herbs to use whenever you need them. Now, what can these herbs and spices do for me, you might ask? For one, the addition of other herbs and spices to your meals, in lieu of salt, can help keep your blood pressure under control. Too much salt or sodium intake can lead to bloating and high blood pressure in those that are already susceptible. And, if you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, salt is often not on the menu anymore anyway. Other spices can liven up your food and make you less likely to sneak a shake of that salt. Many herbs have cancer properties, meaning that they can lower your cancer risk or slow down the growth of cancerous tumors. Others can lower triglyceride and LDL (bad cholesterol) levels in the blood which can lead to the onset of Type 2 diabetes. They also play a role in lowering blood sugar which is great for those who are dealing with a diabetic condition. Spices are also on the list of healthy foods. You can use dried, but freshly grated spices look and taste much better. Among their health attributes: inhibiting growth of cancer cells, increasing metabolism, reducing inflammatory response in the body, decrease arthritis pain, stopping nausea and providing essential nutrients to the diet. If you aren’t taking advantage of fresh herbs and spices, your diet and your health are missing out.

Healthy Cooking With Herbs and Spices

One of the joys of cooking has to do with the wonderful smells that come from your kitchen and flow throughout the house. Cooking with herbs and spices makes those smells and flavors come alive like no other addition. Everyone loves the food so much more when it’s well seasoned. There are ways to get the flavors to explode without overdoing it. One way is to avoid adding all seasonings at once. Food should have layers of flavors, so adding one herb or spice at a time, giving it time to combine with the other ingredients before adding another one is a good idea. Another important factor is to always measure your herbs and spices and start with small amounts. You can always add more, but you can create a disaster by adding too much from the start. Herbs and spices are also medicinal, so they are a very healthy addition to your daily food intake. Most herbs are best when used fresh. The flavors are fresher, smell great, and are perfect for roasting or sautéing. Popular herbs are basil, oregano, parsley, bay leaves, cilantro, basil, rosemary, and thyme. Plus, you can grow your own herbs easily right in your window sill. Dried herbs are great infused with oils or other fats. Crush the herbs first then add to the oil and let the flavors sit over night before using for best results. This is a great way to create wonderful dressings, sauces, and condiments. There is no exact science to how much to add, just add a bit, give it some time to combine, then give it a taste. Tasting food as you cook it is the only way to ensure the best flavor experience for anyone who will eat your creations. Spices are usually dried but you can use them in their whole state as seeds or roots with fabulous results. A great example of this is ginger root and garlic. Nothing tastes better than fresh ginger root over dried ginger, and fresh garlic, any day in recipes. Popular spices are peppercorn, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cayenne pepper, chili powder, curry, cloves, cumin, garlic, five-spice powder. Spices give dishes a flavor punch. They go great with sweet or savory dishes and can mean the difference between a successful dish and a flop. As with herbs, a little can go a long way. Try adding a little of a spice to a dish before adding more to ensure the flavor is right. When trying out a new spice you might want to just flavor parts of a dish and taste before adding more. The best thing to do is open your mind and palate and start experimenting with different flavors and cultures. Curries for instance, are really a combination of different spices, so you can have a variety of flavors of curry. Try out making your own curries to see what you like. You can make curried rice to go with a main course of roasted chicken and veggies. Or, mix in your favorite curry combination into mashed potatoes for a little added oomph to your basic mashed potatoes dish. Above all, don’t be shy to try cooking with herbs and spices. Your family will be glad you did.

Meal Planning Cuts Down On Stress

We all have super busy lives today. We’re running to work, driving children to lessons, helping with homework, volunteering for causes, and trying to fit in some fun too, here and there. We’re sleep deprived, and unfortunately, most of us are also stressed out, overweight and under nourished. The best way to combat these issues is to start menu planning. Menu planning involves creating a weekly menu and grocery list before going to the market. Doing so helps avoid impulse purchases and running out of something important while you’re trying to cook dinner. By learning about meal planning you’ll actually gain more time in your day, eliminate the last minute fast food runs, and teach healthy eating habits. Writing down your daily meals and then viewing the week all at once will give you a chance to see where nutrition is missing in your family’s diet. You’ll be able to see where you can cut back, and where you can add more nutritious options. With today’s computer applications, meal planning can also be a fun activity. If you are stressed out about your food budget, meal planning can save you from that too. Some online apps like ZipList.com, allow you to compare items to weekly sales in your area, helping you save more money. Even if you don’t use an app like that, by planning your weekly meals, then creating a shopping list before going shopping you will eliminate impulse purchases thus, cutting down on your food bill. With proper planning, you can make even the smallest food budget work. Meal planning can help you see what type of nutrition you and your family is missing too. If you look at the overall plan and see more hotdogs and chips than fish and broccoli, you may want to take another stab at the meal planning before creating your shopping list. By using nutritional information found on recipe sites such as Allrecipes.com you can ensure that your family is getting the nutrition they need. It can be challenging to consider each individual’s needs, but the apps help a lot. There are meal planning applications for every desire. If you want to create your own menus and recipes you can do that with a program like BigOven.com. If you’d rather use someone else’s tried and true menu, like SavingDinner.com, you can do that too. Your options are not limited in any way by dietary considerations either. With many online apps you can enter desired ingredients, or eliminate various ingredients too, for the perfect recipe search for your menus. It doesn’t matter if you’re a meat eater or a vegan, or somewhere in between, you can plan affordable healthy meals easily with online applications, cutting down on stress exponentially.

Save Time With Meal Planning

To some people sitting down to plan meals might seem like something that causes you to spend more time, than less time. But, the truth is, by planning meals, you’ll save time shopping, and you’ll be ready each day when it’s time for dinner instead of running through a drive through. The drive through isn’t really as fast as you think it is. First, you have to go out of the house each day, drive there, then wait for it, then drive back and hand it to everyone. Plus, you and I both know that fast food is not actually food. No amount of assurances are going to ever make fast food a truly healthy choice, therefore, you might as well save time (and money) planning meals. If you’re not sure where to start, try starting on a recipe site like AllRecipes.com. You can use it free for basic features, but if you want to do real meal planning pay the upgrade fee which is quite low for what is offered. There you can find recipes, move them over to your menu, then export into a printable shopping list. They also have mobile apps so that you can avoid printing, if you desire. Plus, you could make your menu and shopping list while waiting in a doctor’s office. Having a list to shop from at the store also saves time. You’ll be able to move through the store faster knowing exactly what you’re going to buy, avoiding the impulse purchases that can plague you when you have no idea what you need. Many apps provide shopping lists in the typical order of a grocery store so that you can find your items faster. Whether using an app, or a paper list, you won’t forget what you need, so you won’t need to make a return trip. This saves you both time and money. When you are ready to prepare meals, you’ll simply look on your menu planner, checking the date the night before to see if you need to thaw anything. Then, in the morning you can pop your food into the crock pot if it’s a longer cooking meal, or get as much ready for dinner time as possible. Be sure to enlist the help of teenagers and spouses, because there is no reason why, especially if you work outside the home, that you should do all the work involved in preparing meals for the family. If everyone chips in, they’ll actually enjoy the meal more anyway. As you can see menu planning saves a lot of time in your day. No more wondering on your way home from work what you’re going to feed the family, no more trips in the fast food line, or last minute store runs. All, time savers alone, but put together could literally add hours to your week. Hours you can use doing something fun, like reading, or pinning your favorite meals on Pinterest.

Symptoms of Food Sensitivities

Have you ever had embarrassing noises and movements come from your digestive system after a meal? If could be that you are sensitive to one or more of the foods that you just ate. Find out the symptoms of food sensitivities to know if you are suffering from one. Good for you but not good to you Even the best efforts to eat well can result in disastrous results. Some people eat broccoli or cauliflower and experience the worst bouts of gas. Others drink milk or eat ice cream and end up cramping horribly for the rest of the evening. It could be a sign. Food sensitivities result when your body can’t deal with certain foods. This intolerance doesn’t involve the immune system (like food allergies), but it does leave you feeling quite horrible. The digestive system views certain levels of these foods as toxic and therefore tries to deal with it and rid the body of these foods as soon as possible. Symptoms of Food Sensitivity Food sensitivities are often misdiagnosed if they are diagnosed at all. Because there is not a standard system of testing, a bit of detective work needs to be done. What you are probably concerned about is the symptoms. How do you know that you are suffering from food sensitivities? Here is a sample listing of some of the symptoms common to the condition. Know that it is not comprehensive. These symptoms can be attributed to other conditions that may be occurring at the same time. * Diarrhea * Vomiting * Abdominal cramps * Constipation * Rash * Migraine headaches * Muscle pain * Irritable bowel syndrome * Itching It is easy to see how many of these symptoms can be contributed to other conditions. It is for that reason that many food sensitivities are overlooked, resulting in people suffering for months or even years unnecessarily. A common misconception is that it is bad foods that cause food sensitivities. All foods have the potential to cause a reaction based on its components. Even those foods deemed “healthy” can disagree with your system on some level. If your problems with food seem to be more frequent than usual, see a doctor and have a complete physical. The problem could be related to what your body is not getting as easily as it can be related to getting too much of something. Keep a log of your symptoms. This makes it easy to recollect what was going on in your life as well as what you were eating at the time to see if there is any correlation. If your favorite foods are not causing you pain, you can get help in finding out what to do about it. The symptoms of food sensitivities are common to other conditions as well. Know your symptoms.

What is a Food Sensitivity?

Have you ever eaten something that just didn’t seem to “agree” with you? If you have, there could be several reasons why that happened. One might be that you are suffering from a particular food sensitivity. What is Food Sensitivity? You might have heard about food allergies. They can be deadly serious. To a lesser extent there are conditions caused by food sensitivity. Think of lactose intolerance for example. You are left feeling most unpleasant each time you eat a dairy product. Food sensitivity is, in essence, food intolerance. For whatever reason, your body doesn’t respond well to levels of a certain food or additive that is tolerated better by the majority of the public. Now, anything in excess can lead to adverse reactions but, with food sensitivity, even smaller doses can bring on the pain. The major difference between food sensitivity and a food allergy is the lack of involvement of the immune system. When a food is seen as a foreign invader, the body responds by eliciting an immune response. If you’ve ever seen someone in anaphylactic shock, their tongues may swell as well as their entire face and extremities. This is a true emergency. With food sensitivity, the response is largely found in the digestive tract as the food breaks down and passes through the intestinal area. In effect, a toxic buildup of a substance within the food or given off by the food during digestion has triggered your body to respond. Why do Food Sensitivities occur? There are many reasons, as we stated above, why an individual might experience food sensitivity. 1. Too much of a good thing – Eating five apples at a time may seem like a blow for good health but it might end up being a pain in the gut. The buildup of certain substances in the digestive tract from ingesting that many apples can cause diarrhea or abdominal cramping as a result. 2. Missing links – As with lactose intolerance, the body lacks lactase, the enzyme needed to break down the lactose found in milk. Without it, eating or drinking anything made with milk will cause pain in the gut as the body does its best to deal with this substance that it can’t handle. 3. Heredity – If your parents were missing the needed enzyme for lactose, then you might suffer the same fate. Ask your parents if they have any foods that they can’t eat and see which ones you have in common. 4. Poor diet – A digestive tract that is not functioning in the normal way can lead to uncomfortable symptoms. This might be the case when you eat certain foods. It may look like sensitivity but in reality, this food could be highlighting a weakness in your diet. Food sensitivities are more common than many think.

Discover the Fascinating Health Benefits of Bone Broth

If you’re looking for some of the amazing health benefits of bone broth, then you will want to read this article. Some of the selected benefits this article will focus on are reducing joint pain and inflammation, healing of the intestinal lining, and how easy it is to digest. After reading this blog post, you will know some of the main benefits of drinking bone broth. One of the benefits is how easy it is to digest. That is great news for people with problems with their digestive system. One of the reasons is that bone broth contains glycine, and that is an amino acid that stimulates the production of stomach acid. See – Stimulation of gastric acid secreted by glycine and related oligopeptides in humans, Am J Physiol. 1982 Feb;242(2):G85-8. With an increased amount of stomach acid, the digestive process is more efficient. Too little stomach acid will cause food to be left in the stomach for a longer time before it enters the small intestine. Bone broth is not only easy to digest, but it also aids in digestion by increasing the output of stomach acid. There are many more benefits also, and one of them is healing the intestinal lining. Bone broth improves the intestine lining by aiding in favorable conditions in the stomach. It contains a lot of gelatin, and gelatin is a hydrophilic colloid that attracts and hold water, such as digestive juices, thus ensuring proper digestion. Hydrophilic means that it is attracted to water, and colloids are large molecules or microscopic particles dispersed in a liquid. It has even been found in scientific studies that chicken soup significantly fights infection in the upper respiratory tract, see Chicken soup inhibits neutrophil chemotaxis in vitro, Chest. 2000 Oct;118(4):1150-7. Not only does it lessen infection, it also reduces joint pain and inflammation. One of the often-made claims surrounding bone broth is that it reduce joint pain and inflammation. That’s because it contains a lot of substances good for your bones. There’s a lot of collagen, which aids in rebuilding connective tissues, like tendons and ligaments. It also contains calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus which is essential for bone health. Another substance contained in bone broth is glucosamine, which reduces joint pain and inflammation. Also, there is chondroitin sulfate, which has been studied for its role in preventing osteoarthritis. This shows that there is a lot of ingredients of bone broth that helps reduce joint pain and improve bone health. There are many benefits to consuming bone broth, such as helping in digestion, healing the intestinal lining which is critical for the biome and gut bacteria, and reducing joint pain and improving bone health. Knowing these benefits will help you enjoy bone broth knowing that it is great for your health!