If This Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right (and a recipe for bone broth)

Is it wrong that I ate a half pound of bacon for breakfast?

Is it wrong to take a nap before noon?

Is it wrong that we're paying our son to sleep in his own bed?

Is it wrong to share pictures of a live chicken and a chicken carcass in the same post?

Don't worry, the pictures are not before and after shots.



Last night I had a dream that I met a family who also had 10 chickens.  I asked how many eggs they collected every day.  14 was their answer.

Now I know this is physiologically impossible, but my dream reveals my dissatisfaction with our daily egg harvest.  Our flock is laying an average of 6 eggs a day.  We're eating an average of 9 eggs a day.  Something is wrong with the numbers, but keeping chickens still seems like the right thing to do.

Sometimes we skip collecting eggs one day, just so we can collect more the next day.  It's all about perception.

Now, about that chicken carcass . . .



People at the gym have asked me how I manage to work out 6 days a week and avoid muscle cramping and soreness.  My answer is simple: bone broth.  Every morning before I work out, I drink a cup of chicken broth.  I've been drinking it for months now, inspired by my friend, Amy, and her post about chicken feet.

How does it help?  I'm not entirely sure.  I think it's magic.  Must be all the minerals and nutrients: calcium, magnesium, potassium, glucosamine, sodium, collagen, gelatin, to name a few.  I sprinkle sea kelp granules on my broth for iodine.  But perhaps the most important ingredient is belief.  I believe that drinking bone broth before I work out helps me out, and therefore it does.  Like I said, it's all about perception.

Here's how I make my magic bone broth:

About once a week, I roast a chicken.  Then I put the picked over carcass in the crockpot, along with the bones and skin my family has left on their plates.  I add the giblets* I pulled out of the chicken before roasting, along with the tops of an onion, one carrot, one stalk of celery, and one tablespoon of vinegar (helps extract calcium from bones).  I cover it with water, leaving about 1/2 inch of head space.  I cook it on low for 24 hours, then strain the broth through a colander, let the broth cool for a few hours at room temperature, and freeze it in half pint jars (once again leaving a half inch of head space).

*If I don't make the broth the same day I roast the chicken, I freeze the giblets until I'm ready to cook the broth.  Believe me, they go bad fast and smell nasty.

Alternatively, I use a few pounds of chicken feet in lieu of a chicken carcass.  Chicken feet broth has more gelatin, and smells like Top Ramen.  When cooled, it looks like chicken Jello.  Sounds appetizing, doesn't it?



Even if you don't work out 6 days a week, adding bone broth to your daily diet is a healthy choice.  Bone broth promotes digestion, aids healing, and is packed with essential nutrients.  It's simple and inexpensive to make, and it's the right thing to do with a chicken carcass.

You can't go wrong with bone broth.  Drink up.