#18 Meat Stock vs Bone Broth and Why It's Important to Know!

The GAPS Chef, Monica Corrado, teaches us the difference between meat stock and bone broth and why it's so important to know.

Adults drink 3-4 cups meat stock daily. Children can drink 1-2 cups meat stock daily. You can cook veggies in it that you’re going to eat. Here is my recipe. This is different than bone broth and will heal and seal the gut to allow for gut healing. Just spread the servings out throughout the day and don’t try to drink it all at the same time. You can also make this into a soup if you get tired of drinking it straight. You can also put a chicken in the crockpot in the morning and it’ll be ready that evening. Here’s a video to learn more about making this nutritious, delicious stock.

MEATY BONES:
Beef, bison: shanks, soup bones, short ribs, meaty neck bones.
Lamb: shanks, meaty neck bones.
Pork: hocks (not smoked), meaty neck bones, ribs.
Chicken or other small fowl: whole bird cut up or legs and thighs with all skin and fat, or backs, necks, and wings or a combo of all.
Turkey: thighs, legs, necks, or wings or combo.

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Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, raw milk, bone broth, drink, fat, gut, good, heal, Monica, milk, fermented foods, dairy, Natasha, eat, meat, means, butter, teaspoon, glutamic acid, gaps

SPEAKERS

Melissa Crenshaw, Monica Corrado

Melissa Crenshaw  00:00

Hello, welcome to today's show. I am so, so excited today to have Monica Corrado with me. She is a certified GAPS practitioner, has been for about six years, and a teaching gaps chef for 11 years. Monica is also on Dr. Natasha's team. She's been there since the beginning and she wrote the curriculum. Monica is helping me personally heal my gut, and I'm just so excited to have her here with us to teach us some things about meat stock and some other nutritional things. I wanted to also tell you that Monica's favorite remedy is Arnica because it's good for all injuries. Also, hypericum because she says it's "putting on the armor of light from the inside out." I am so happy you're here with me today, Monica. Welcome.

Monica Corrado  01:00

Thank you! Thanks for having me!

Melissa Crenshaw  01:05

I love it! Tell me about "putting on the armor of light from the inside out." What does that mean?

Monica Corrado  01:13

Well, Hypericum is St. John's wort. St. John's wort is one of those beautiful plant remedies from nature that is available to us in so many ways - as an herb, as an essential oil, as a homeopathic, right? St. John's wort, it's all about putting on the armor of light; the light that we already contain. Allowing the light that we already contained within us to shine out. That's why St. John's wort also has is known for treating depression. You see?

Melissa Crenshaw  01:57

Yes, yes. I love it. Hypericum is also one of my favorites for the sharp, shooting nerve pains that sometimes I can get. So, Monica, you know I am a homeopath and I have been working on healing my gut and that of my family. I have been using homeopathy, but real food and homeopathy together have always been my thing. They work so beautifully together, and you need both. I always tell my clients; you can't just continue to eat whatever you want to eat and think homeopathy is going to come and fix it all. We have to clean up the diet and work on the gut health that way, too. I have just really enjoyed working with you since December. And I've learned so much that I then get to pass on to my clients. The main thing that I do is recommend that almost all of them drink meat stock. Here's what happens - in my follow ups, I realized that they have actually been drinking bone broth instead. Help me explain this to them!

Monica Corrado  03:15

Yes, yes, yes. So first of all, I want to concur with you 100%, that the food is the foundation. The food is the foundation. It's really important to get real food in there and to get clean food, the best you can find prepared in a way that your body can use. Then homeopathics are a wonderful thing that GAPS practitioners have found to really help when we're healing and sealing, so it's wonderful that we are doing these two things together. In terms of meat stock versus bone broth, the first thing I have to do is just say, I didn't write all the curriculum for Dr. Natasha, I wrote the cooking curriculum. So, I teach the cooking for the GAPS practitioners, and for the coaches, and for anyone else who wants to learn. I just want to make that clear, but I'm happy you started with that, because a long time ago, I think it was 2015, I became aware that many, many people were making bone broth to "heal and seal" their gut. Bone broth is not even in the GAPS diet. Number one. I talked with Dr. Natasha and I asked her actually via email, I really want to write a book, can I write a book so that people can understand the difference between meat stock and bone broth? Because it's really important. We were very confused and bone broth was getting all the applause and all the attention. The difference between meat stock and bone broth, there are many. The biggest one is that bone broth is made with bony bones and it's cooked very long. For chicken bone broth, you know, the usual recipe is up to 24 hours. For beef bone broth, it's up to 72 hours - it's 24 to 72 hours. That is so much time that during that time when you use bony bones, and you cook them for a long period of time, you get very high levels of glutamic acid. You might say, what's glutamic acid? Who cares? Glutamic acid is one molecule off of MSG. Let's say it a different way, glutamic acid is an excitotoxin that works on the frontal lobe of the brain. So what does that mean? That means that if you drink bone broth and you have a leaky gut, you also have a leaky brain barrier. That means that that excitotoxin is gonna go straight to your frontal lobe, and it will aggravate any Nervous System symptoms you have - any of them. Sometimes it's a migraine, sometimes it's stimming for children that are on GAPS, or children that have autism or brain function disorders. Sometimes it's seizures, frankly. I don't want to put it out there that if you drink bone broth, you get seizures. What I'm saying is, if you are prone to seizures and you drink bone broth, it can trigger that. And that's it. So, we really want people to be drinking meat stock. I've been on a personal crusade for like six years now to try and get people to drink meat stock, make meat stock. It's so much easier. It's made with meaty bones, which is meat with a joint in it or connective tissue, and it's cooked short. So, meaty bones plus cooking short means very low levels of glutamic acid, nothing that's problematic at all, and it means you're still getting everything you need to heal and seal. Which is what? Gelatin, amino acids, connective tissue, all that good stuff.

Melissa Crenshaw  07:44

It's much more delicious, too. I really, really disliked bone broth when I was trying to drink it years ago, because I thought that's what I needed. I hated it. I had to make myself drink it, and meat stock is absolutely delicious.

Monica Corrado  07:58

Well, that's significant, actually. That is really significant. Yes, it is delicious, because it's made with meat. But also, if your body is saying, "I don't want this," then it's probably not right for you. Actually, that was the first clue that I had on all of these lists serves. Remember those years ago? There are all these moms trying to heal their children or trying to use the diet to heal, and they are forcing their children, with all good intention. They were trying to get the children to drink bone broth, and these kids were not having it. They would scream, they would run away, moms just couldn't get them to do it. That was another, you know, clue for me, like what's going on here? What was going on was they were trying to feed the children something that would make them feel bad, something that would help have them trigger the symptom.

Melissa Crenshaw  09:00

Their bodies knew it and their instincts knew it. Yeah.

Monica Corrado  09:03

Some of them are nonverbal, verbal, whatever. They're like, you can't give me that stuff. And so they know.

Melissa Crenshaw  09:11

Yeah, so good. Then some sometimes people will say, but the but the bone broth has gelatin in it.

Monica Corrado  09:17

Yes, it does. It's the glutamic acid that's problematic. You know, here's the thing. You can make chicken meat stock in an hour and a half to three hours. Or you could make a yummy pot of beef meat stock in four hours, certainly in an afternoon. I remember the days of rolling bones for 72 hours, what's really turned out to be like five days by the time you get it off and you left the house and you brought it back up. This is so much kinder. So it's a gentler, easier way to heal your gut.

Melissa Crenshaw  10:06

Yeah. Then I get to eat the chicken and I get to eat the carrots and the onions out of it.

Monica Corrado  10:12

And you get to sprinkle it with good salt and minerals.

Melissa Crenshaw  10:16

I got my Baja Gold yesterday. 

Monica Corrado  10:19

Good, good. Yeah, good. 

Melissa Crenshaw  10:21

It's really good. The other thing that I'm trying to start helping my clients with is fermented foods, but of course, I'm no expert at all. I'm passing on what I'm learning from you, and I'm talking about creme fresh and beet kvass. At the same time, not being an expert, I'm not able to guide them like you're guiding me and saying, well, maybe you need to try this or maybe try that or, or not. What I am really starting with is raw milk, raw butter, cultured butter as kind of a milder way to help them. Is raw milk gut healing. Is that okay?

Monica Corrado  11:06

Well, raw milk? I've been in the raw milk revolution since it started almost. I'm not that old, but I'm trying to get raw milk access for all 50 states through the work of the Real Milk Project of the Weston A Price Foundation. It is much better to take raw milk and culture it, and those foods are healing to the gut. Cultured milk would be yogurt, cultured cream, cultured raw cream could be creme fresh or it could be soured cream. Those things could be kefir. When we culture the raw milk, we pre-digest the lactose. Lactose is a milk sugar that can be very, very hard on people. That's what makes people bloat and say, I can't handle dairy. So, when we culture it long, no more lactose. Then, we also get beautiful lactic acid. Lactic acid is what's very soothing to the gut. It's soothing, it's healing, and it also sets up conditions for beneficial bacteria to grow and pathogens to die. So, is raw milk healing? Yes. And for the GAPS diet, and when we're trying to heal our gut, we culture it first. Then you graduate to drinking raw milk later on. Then, the idea would be we have rebuilt your gut flora, and you can handle lactose coming in.

Melissa Crenshaw  13:13

Okay, so my people who are already somewhat handling dairy, they're like, I get a stomachache or I get bloated sometimes, but they're still drinking the dairy. They could just go straight to raw milk, right? Or do they still need to do the cultured first? 

Monica Corrado  13:30

If you're cramping or your bloating, it's highly suggested that you would benefit from cultured dairy. Just go make yogurt, so easy peasy.

Melissa Crenshaw  13:44

Yeah. Easy. Okay.

Monica Corrado  13:47

Easy. The other thing we really should just bring up... I'm not sure if you're gonna go there, but pasteurized and raw milk are totally different things.

Melissa Crenshaw  13:57

I'm trying to talk to people about that. Help me there.

Monica Corrado  14:02

Well, especially with the action on the gut. What we've found over the years - when I say we, it's Dr. Natasha, all of her graduates, all of these practitioners that are working with people to try and heal and seal their gut. Inevitably we hear "Oh, I can't handle dairy. It makes me bloat. I can't handle dairy; it makes me cramp. I can I get a stomachache." The first thing we do is say, "Are you drinking raw dairy or pasteurized dairy?" Many, many, many issues can be shifted, can be resolved, by just going from pasteurized to raw. That's the first thing because that milk has all the enzymes that God gave it in that cow or in that goat, whatever. It has the enzymes that break down. It has the lactase that breaks down the lactose for you. It's live. All sorts of things. When you start pasteurizing milk, what we need to remember is that pasteurization is sterilization. It's just called pasteurization after good old Louis Pasteur. It is sterilization. So, we have to think about what that means for the health of the milk and what's happening when you actually drink that milk. It is a sterile milk. The enzymes are dead, the protein structure has been destroyed, the calcium has been reduced by a third or more. You're looking at it going, "Okay, looks like milk, tastes like milk. Body says, this ain't milk. What is this stuff that you want me to try and break down?" There's a lot more I can talk about, about raw milk, but I encourage people to jump on realmilk.com. That is the project of the Weston A Price Foundation. They are at Westonaprice.org. Take a look and see - they've got phenomenal resources, articles, good things to take a look at, what's going on in your state, what do the laws say, all sorts of good things. 

Melissa Crenshaw  16:27

Wonderful, so good. What I do with my clients is meat stock and raw milk, so that's gonna be good information for me to share this podcast with people. Is there anything else for just a brand new beginner, somebody just kind of starting out that's not working with the GAPS practitioner and doesn't know what to do? I know you often talk about good salt. Is there anything else that could help my clients to start to heal their gut? Then, of course, they could see a GAPS practitioner or GAPS coach or come to you. What I love about working with you, Monica, and I'm totally getting off the questions, is that you're helping me learn how to do all of these things, make all the things. That's the difference, I think, in what you do and what maybe just a coach does but teaching whatever people can do. Until they get to that point, though, if they decide they even want to go that route, what else could they do on their own?

Monica Corrado  17:26

Sure. Then we want to get back to cultured foods and fermented foods.

Melissa Crenshaw  17:33

Yes, absolutely. Go back there.

Monica Corrado  17:35

There's lots of things they can do to start healing. The first thing they need to do is take sugar out of their diet. Number one, all sugar. That means all refined sugar. Number two, processed foods gone. Do your best, you know, get them out. Really important, if you want to heal and seal your gut, and you want to feel better. Certainly, wheat has got to go. Gluten has got to go. Grains really should go for a good period of time. These are things they could just take out of their diet. You don't need to learn anything here. You just take what we call injurious foods out, and then we're going to add in things like good salt. Good salt, to me, is a high mineral salt. That means it has to have more than 50 minerals in it with no anti caking agents, or flow agents. Those are chemicals they throw into salt. Forget it. You don't want any of that stuff. So good salt, and they can add in good fats. Our brains starved and our everything is starved for fats. Our hormones are starved. Our adrenals are starved. Our brains are starved. Every part of our body is starved for fats in this country, because of the whole low fat, no fat movement that started in the 80s.

Melissa Crenshaw  19:14

It's amazing to me when I ask people how many fats they're eating, they happily tell me avocado, olive and coconut. Then they shy away when we start talking about the other fats. I'm like, no, that's good! They're like, I can eat those? They're so lost on fats.

Monica Corrado  19:27

Well, it makes total sense that they are because they were so shunned for decades. So yeah, and all the babies. All the moms and dads that had babies that were low fat, no fat and then had babies and made them low fat, no fat. I mean, if we want to talk about why we've got brain issues, brain function issues, all sorts of reproductive issues, let's go there, but we won't go there right now. Maybe next time?

Melissa Crenshaw  19:49

Yep.

Monica Corrado  19:50

Fat. So, what do we want you to eat? We want you to eat beautiful, grass fed butter. Butter, butter, butter, butter, lots of it. Pastured butter is even better than organic butter, if you will, because we want those cows eating grass the way they were meant to be. So, lots of good butter. I'd love to have people be eating tallow. What's tallow? That's beef or lamb or bison fat. Or how about duck fat and chicken fat and lard. If you eat pork, lard. Boy, our grandmothers and great grandmothers made everything with lard. Why? Fantastic saturated fat. That's very important. You know, we love avocado oil, but do not cook with it. That is a dressing oil. We love extra virgin olive oil. But don't cook with it. Right? That's a dressing oil, you know. People need to allow themselves to have these fats. Then all of a sudden, they won't be as depressed as they used to be. You need, that the body needs it. Breast milk. Okay, what's it made of? 55% fat, and then protein.

Melissa Crenshaw  21:20

What about the person is dairy free because they're so intolerant to it? What fats? They're having tallow and lard.

Monica Corrado  21:28

Yep, we have tallow, lard, chicken fat, duck fat, but here's the thing about dairy intolerance. Really, really? I say that and it kind of sounds kind of crabby of me, but what we have to remember is that, yes, people have discomfort. Yes, they do. And they're listening to their bodies. Perfect. We love that. When people have a true allergy, that's different from having a sensitivity. We know that, right? The vast majority of people who even have allergies to the milk protein will not have a problem - we're talking over 95, 98, 99 huge percent - the vast majority of people will have no problem with dairy fat. That means butter and ghee, good old ghee, which is just clarified butter, it's just pure butter fat, are really open game. They are wonderful for people to try and have in their diet.

Melissa Crenshaw  22:43

I have a hard time getting people to believe that. I do try to tell them that.

Monica Corrado  22:48

I'm sure you do. Well, you know what you can do? Have them do a skin test. Easy peasy. A skin test is something that Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride, of GAPS, talks about in all four of her books right now. The skin test is something that we can use to show if you have a sensitivity, or really a very, very strong reaction that your body says I can't handle this. I don't want this, don't give it to me. The way that we do that is you could have any of your clients come and go and get some good grass-fed butter. Right? That could be Kerry Gold, that could be Organic Valley pasture butter, that could be some of the European butters. Beautiful pasture butter. They would take some of that butter and put it on the inside of their wrist before they go to bed. Just rub some there. If they're worried the cat or the dog is gonna lick it during the night, they could put a Band-Aid on it. Then in the morning, if there's an angry red spot there, that's it. That's a direct quote, angry red spot. That's what Dr. Natasha says. Then that means they're not ready, can't do that. If it's clear, you're good to go. 

Melissa Crenshaw  24:16

Awesome. It's easy. 

Monica Corrado  24:18

Yeah, but here's the thing that you and I've talked about all the time. It's called the Monica Corrado stairstep method. I made it up myself. Certainly, many other people use it too, right. The stair step method is, it's like you're looking at the side of a staircase. What does it look like? You go up, then it's flat for a while, then it goes up, then it's flat for a while. So, if you have any concern about bringing any of these beautiful foods into your diet, that's fine. Slow and steady. Start with an amount that you think will be fine, like a quarter of a teaspoon or an eighth of a teaspoon. Whatever works for you. You've done the skin test, it said no problem, I'm going forward. Body says fine, go ahead, I'm not reacting. Then you got to get your mind on board. You could say, I think I'll do a quarter of a teaspoon, and you do that quarter of a teaspoon maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. You're feeling good. You're feeling good. You're feeling good. Thursday, maybe you go to half a teaspoon. You stay there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, feeling good. Sunday, you can go to whole teaspoon. That's how we do this little stair step. It's slow and steady. It's at your own pace. This is not a race. One of the things that I've found over the years working with people is their desire - not sure if it's an American trait, or what - is their desire to like, go from zero to 100 in a second. They're like, "Hey, I heard kombucha is good for me. Let me just drink a whole thing." And then they're on the floor vomiting all week. Wait, I have one more thing. Can I use this? They say hey, "Melissa said raw milk is good for me. I've never had it in my life. I don't eat any fermented foods, I don't take any probiotics, but I you know, this is really yummy. Let me drink 8, 12, 16 ounces at one time." Then I'm gonna vomit all week. And you will. And then I've heard it so many times that raw milk really makes you sick. The reality is this. It's not about the raw milk. The raw milk was being itself. There's nothing wrong with that raw milk, intrinsically. It's that it's live food and your body is not ready for that much live food all at one time. 

Melissa Crenshaw  26:58

Take it slow, yeah.

Monica Corrado  27:01

Take it slow, even though it tastes like heaven. Take it slow. So that you don't have to be going, "Oh, I don't feel good." Why would you not feel good? You have all these great microbes having a party in your gut!

Melissa Crenshaw  27:16

Mm hmm. So good. That's such good information. Let's talk about the fermented foods before we go. What did you want to say about that? The cream fresh or just fermented foods in general?

Monica Corrado  27:31

We just said we're going to have them take out things from their diet, right? That's a wonderful thing. We're going to ask them to move some good salt in, we're going to ask them to move some good fats in, and we're gonna ask them to make some meat stock. So that's awesome. What else can they do? Even if they're not ready to start culturing anything? Maybe they have to go source it. Where can I find this milk? How do I do this stuff? They can start doing things like buying fermented foods at the store. Is it perfect? No. Is it a way in? Yes. So, fermented foods like sauerkraut, and kimchi, and beets, fermented beets, and all those things. They can start slowly. Again, remember, you can even get fermented salsa out there. Do not think that you can have an entire bucket of fermented salsa with those chips if you're not used to it because it would be too much for you, but these are things that you can easily bring into your diet until you're ready to start making your own. Which will be incredibly easy, so inexpensive, and so much richer in the amount of good bugs and the amount of good bacteria, in the amount of beneficial bacteria, enzymes, vitamin C, all sorts of other wonderful things.

Melissa Crenshaw  29:04

So good. So good. I'm going to pick up my raw milk again tomorrow morning. And I love it. You know, I was afraid of raw milk years ago when everybody started having it. I was like, I don't know that is that safe, so I didn't do it and our guts just got worse and worse. I'm not saying it's because we didn't have raw milk, but I'm sure it contributed. What we did is cut out dairy. We started drinking almond milk, right? For years.

Monica Corrado  29:31

Well, you know, that's another whole story. You know, all these "plant based milks” are highly processed foods that are not prepared in a way that your body can actually use them. That's another whole conversation. That's also in my book about how to make the nuts so you can make your own nut milk for those who really want to do that. The stuff that's out there, man. The one thing I would like for people to know is, eat as close to the source as you can. Processed foods are what we call devitalized foods, and they will not, they cannot supply your body with the nutrients your body needs to thrive. They just don't have it.

Melissa Crenshaw  30:19

Yeah. Lastly, what is your website and tell me about your book. How do people find your book?

Monica Corrado  30:26

Sure, sure. My website is simplybeingwell.com. They can also find me if they're on Facebook. I have Simply Being Well: Cooking for Wellbeing is my page there. I have a book called The Complete Cooking Techniques for the GAPS Diet. Where do they find it? They could find it on my website, simplybeingwell.com. They can also find it on my publisher’s website, which is seleneriverpress.com. I have a blog there, I write for them. They can see some of the things that I've done there. It's all right there.

Melissa Crenshaw  31:12

I'll link all of this in the show notes. Of course, the whole thing is transcribed so people can read the transcription and turn it into a blog if people would rather read it. Monica was also so gracious to give me a discount code for my clients for her book, so I'll put that in there too. Gosh, Monica, this was awesome. I think I'm going to link this podcast in every remedy plan that I send out so that people can get a really good understanding of what I'm asking them to do. Thank you so much for being here with me today.

Monica Corrado  31:51

You're so welcome. Thanks for having me, and thanks for all the good work that you're doing

Melissa Crenshaw  31:57

Oh, I love it so much. You, too. Have a great day.

Monica Corrado  32:02

Thank you.