How the Chicken is Raised, Matters

"Why is chicken soup superior to all the things we have, even more relaxing than 'Tylenol?'  It is because chicken soup has a natural ingredient which feeds, repairs, and calms the mucous lining in the small intestine.  This inner lining is the beginning or ending of the nervous system.  It is easily pulled away from the intestine through too many laxatives, too many food additives... and parasites.  Chicken soup... heals the nerves, improves digestion, reduces allergies, relaxes and gives strength.  - Hanna Droeger from Ageless Remedies from Mother's Kitchen.

A good, homemade stock is the backbone of a good kitchen; it provides flavor to your dishes as well as sustenance and nourishment for your body.   Broth is dense in nutrients.  Rich in trace minerals such as magnesium and calcium as well as glycine – an amino acid that aids digestion and may help to assist in the healing of wounds and injuries which may account for broth’s fame as a healing, wholesome foods. (Read more about the benefits of broth)

Do not purchase canned broth from the store!  It is easy to make your own.  See some good recipes here:  Broth

 

The quality of your ingredients greatly influences the ability of your broth to produce a successful gel, sometimes the bones, meat and skin of conventionally raised chickens will not produce a gel at all, regardless of simmering and brewing under optimal conditions.

 

One surefire way to ensure a beautiful, mineral-dense stock that can produce a solid gel is to use a fresh pasture-raised chicken or a thawed frozen pasture-raised chicken, including the chicken feet if you’re fortunate enough to find them.  As the chicken will only undergo one period of cooking, as opposed to two (roasting and then simmering) producing a gel through this method of preparing chicken broth is more reliable.

Recently while making broth I decided to capture the visible difference between a pasture-raised meat chicken and a store bought chicken.  The store bought chicken I used was supposedly an organic, free range chicken - so it wasn't the cheapest chicken in the store!

Compare that to the chickens our neighbors raised with us and were recently processed by their own hands.

Look at the difference in the broth.  The left jar is the broth that cooked from the store-bought, organic chicken.  The jar on the right is from the chicken we processed a few weeks ago at our neighbors farm.

 

 

 



So if you have access to a local farmer and a little extra freezer space, it's very worth it to get a pasture-raised chicken!  Most farmers are happy to have you come by to see their operation, so you can see the living conditions of the food you are buying.  The health benefits are great, and once you've eaten chicken raised by a local farmer, chances are you'll have a hard time eating chicken from a grocery store ever again!

P.S.  Do you know the ingredients to a typical Bouillon Cube?  Here they are:

Salt, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, corn syrup solids, sugar, beef fat, monosodium glutamate (flavor enhancer), dextrose (corn sugar), onion powder, water, garlic powder, caramel color, natural flavorings, disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate (flavor enhancers), partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (soybean oil and/or palm oil and/or cottonseed oil), artificial color.