How to make short-cooked meat stock for resolving autoimmune disease and improving gastrointestinal function if you cannot tolerate the glutamate in long-cooked bone broths.
Properly prepared homemade broth is a foundational food for autoimmune healing diets such as GAPS, AIP, or the Specific Carbohydrate diet.
The GAPS protocol, for example, recommends a small cup of broth with every meal. This traditional food is the only cooked food that acts as a raw food when consumed. This is accomplished by the gelatin in the broth, which powerfully attracts digestive juices to itself. This, in turn, significantly enhances the nutrient absorption for all the other foods consumed with it.
Ironically, this most curative of foods is frequently not well tolerated by people with leaky gut – the very people who desperately need it! Fortunately, this intolerance only lasts a short period of time until gut-healing advances.
What to do in the interim since bone broth is such an important healing food? The answer is to make meat stock instead.
When Meat Stock is the Better Choice
The reason some individuals with leaky gut do not tolerate bone broth is is due to the beneficial natural glutamates that can sometimes trigger uncomfortable reactions. MSG is the synthetic, factory-produced version of glutamate. MSG is an excitotoxin, which means it damages or even kills neurons. Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock MD lays out all the science in his eye-opening book Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills.
While the natural glutamate in bone broth are not dangerous or equivalent in any way to concentrated, factory-produced MSG, they can nonetheless trigger similar symptoms in sensitive individuals. Yeast extract can do the same. Thus, anyone sensitive to MSG typically does much better with meat stock, which has little glutamate by comparison.
Others best served by stock instead of broth are children and adults who are autistic, those with ADD/ADHD, and/or people suffering from seizures or tics.
Another sign that bone broth is best replaced with meat stock is when uncomfortable die-off symptoms, as well as nervous system agitation occurs. These are signs that your digestive tract is not ready for bone broth. Use meat stock when symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, constipation, and skin eruptions or rashes develop. Making the transition gradually from stock to broth is advisable.
Storing Meat Stock
When you make meat stock as described in the recipe below, you will notice that a significant amount of fat forms with it. This fat is best left in the stock. When it cools, it will rise to the top and remain there. The fat forms a protective seal that prevents oxidation.
Refrigerated meat stock will last a week or more with that layer of fat on top. If you prefer to remove the fat to create a clarified meat stock, it is best to freeze it. No worries, as meat stock thaws beautifully.
This article on freezing stock or broth provides tips on the safe use of either plastic or glass for this purpose.
Homemade Meat Stock
The most significant difference between meat stock and bone broth is that stock is not cooked as long as broth. This results in some pros as well as cons.
Pros
First for the pros. Stock is just as rich in gelatin and beneficial detoxifying amino acids (like proline and glycine) as broth. These nutrients are pulled out of the meat and connective tissue during the first several hours of cooking. A lengthy simmer is not necessary.
Another pro is that the meat used to make stock doesn’t become tasteless as it does with a long-simmering broth. It is delicious and can be used alone or with any meat dish you wish.
Cons
Now for the cons. First, you will notice that stock is not quite as flavorful as long-simmering bone broth. This is due to the significant reduction in glutamate.
The savvy home chef can compensate by ensuring quality vegetables are simmered with the meat stock. While making bone broth doesn’t always require vegetables to achieve amazing flavor, meat stock definitely does. If you don’t have time to add veggies to your stock, check out this article on seasoning stock to ensure it is great tasting anyway.
I would recommend following the recipe below as closely as possible to ensure your stock tastes as flavorful as properly made broth. Using chicken feet is highly recommended as well (though an optional ingredient) to achieve higher levels of gelatin.
Avoid Stainless Steel
I recommend avoiding stainless steel pots and pressure cookers like the Instapot for making both meat stock and bone broth.
This is due to the very real potential for leaching heavy metals like nickel when acidic dishes are cooked. Enameled stockpots or the clay slow cookers like Vita-clay would be safer choices. This is especially important for those already suffering from heavy metal toxicity issues. This risk has been demonstrated by compelling scientific research.
How to Use
Meat stock is a wonderful base for soups and sauces just the same as broth.
Sipping it on its own in a mug is delicious and hugely beneficial too, especially when added to a meal of other cooked foods.
Homemade Meat Stock Recipe
Recipe for gelatin rich meat stock to be used instead of bone broth for those with leaky gut in the beginning stages of healing.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken preferably pastured
- 2-4 chicken feet optional
- 1-2 chicken heads optional
- 4 quarts filtered water
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 Tbsp sea salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
Instructions
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Rinse chicken and optional feet with filtered water.
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Cut whole chicken in half down the middle lengthwise. Place in the stockpot with optional ingredients if desired.
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Fill pot with filtered water. Bring to a boil. Skim and then add sea salt and pepper. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 2-4 hours.
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Remove the pot from the heat and carefully take out the chicken and other large parts. Debone and reserve the meat for eating. It is delicious. I use for quesadillas, chicken salad, and BBQ chicken sandwiches.
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Strain the stock, cool to room temperature and then refrigerate or freeze.
I have been making meat stock in a stainless steel pot for years and I have been reading up on your stainless steel information. Thank you again for teaching me valuable things.
I would like to try the VitaClay – probably the stoneware – but how does one skim off the impurities? Do you leave the top off, skim, then put the lid on? Can you cook with the lid off? How do you check it to see if it’s simmering and not boiling? Can you open the lid to check on it while cooking or do you have to completely stop it and then restart it all over again if you want to take a peek?
p.s. Dr. Natasha says it’s best to not to use raw apple cider vinegar to cook meat stock, she says to use mineral salt instead, as the mineral salt will help pull the nutrients out. Apple cider vinegar is mentioned in the directions, but not in the ingredients list.
You skim after it comes to a low boil … about 10 minutes or so. You can leave the lid off at first, or just peek under the lid to check.
Thanks for the heads up about the instructions!
Yikes…I love using my Instant Pot. I get perfect bone broth every time. But I also have an Instant Dutch Oven Cooker. I’m going to try and make the meat stock in there. I love meat stock and it’s so true…there is a huge difference between the bone broth and the meat stock. I cant NEVER just drink broth. I generally will cook with it or sometimes make a pureed vegetable soup. But drinking it seems to give me some sloshing in my cecum area and fluid will not move through. It’s the weirdest and most uncomfortable thing. So cooking my rice or other grains with it seems to be a good method for me….or just adding a few tablespoons to my meals as I go along.
A bowl of bone broth based soup gives me the itchies and hives but I don’t get that with meat stock……
I know what I’m making next batch.
Thanks for the tip on the instant pot…..i’ll use my dutch oven next time.
Can you reuse the bones to make a second batch of stock back to back?
Not with meat stock, unfortunately. The second batch will be higher in glutamate, which is what you are trying to avoid in the first place making meat stock instead of bone broth.
Great question!!
If using a slow cooker, how long should I cook it for?
Will slow cooking still creating meat stock or would it be bone broth?
Thankyou
Here’s the recipe for a slow cooker. It depends how long you cook it whether it will be meat stock or not. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/slow-cooker-bone-broth/
My husband always feels sick when I’m cooking broth in the house (headaches, some nausea). Less so if I omit the few Tbsp. vinegar. I’ve learned to keep it just barely simmering which also helps somewhat. I’ve always wondered why this might be. He doesn’t normally have any digestive issues although he does have an allergy to animal hair. I’ve tried googling the issue but haven’t come up with much.
I can only use a slow cooker with a ceramic pot to make my meat stock so can you tell me the cooking time for this? It says in the GAPS book that slow cooker it is overnight but doesn’t say how many hours. Thank you.
Do you simmer with lid on or off please?
Mine always gets too hot and boils too rapidly despite been on the lowest setting & then it over boils and cooks it. What am I doing wrong please?
Lid on. Feel free to add more water if necessary.
Is the recipe instructions the same for beef?
I sure hope the “meat stock” tastes better than the long simmering bone broth I have tried multiple ways to make. The flavor is so pungent strong I have to add tomato paste to cover the flavor and why I stopped making it even though I believe it is healthy.
Do you feel it is necessary to only make this with organic grass-fed bones/meat to avoid any heavy metals, etc.?
Thanks. Great site!
Yes, basically the same.
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. LOVE your site and especially some of your spunky responses when people spit out f-bombs, accuse you of fear mongering when they don’t like to hear truth (particularly about veganism) and so forth, or when someone who doesn’t know you calls you “honey” (yep I read that one too) and you put them in line. So thankful to have accurate information that’s not tainted and manipulated by $$$. Thanks again!