English: Broth Svenska: Buljong (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I don’t know how this happened exactly, but I seemed to have diverted (a bit) from reading and writing about Dr. Junger’s Clean Program. My last post took me up to chapter six where I learned about intestinal health.
Somehow I got focused on intestinal health and revisited some earlier information I had explored several months ago. Has anyone heard of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride?
Dr. Campbell-McBride is a medical doctor with two postgraduate degrees: Master of Medical Sciences in Neurology and Master of Medical Sciences in Human Nutrition.
She is well-known for developing a concept of GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome). GAPS is a natural treatment for Autism, ADHD/ADD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Depression and Schizophrenia.
In addition, the GAPS Nutritional Protocol will help with all digestive disorders, autoimmune disease, eating disorders, epilepsy, failure to thrive, childhood disease, problems with development, and much more.
If this interests you, here is the link to a 5-minute video where Natasha discusses the importance of healthy gut flora (click here).
One of the staples in the GAPS Nutritional Protocol is bone broth. Lots of bone broth and lots of soup made with bone broth. Not only is the bone broth important, it’s crucial to scrape the bones clean of all meaty bits (cartilage/connective tissue) and including adding vinegar to the water to help extract the minerals from the bones and tapping the bones to extract the bone marrow.
So — for the last two weeks, I’ve been enjoying bone broth. The first week, I tried beef bones. The second week, chicken bones. This week it’s beef bones again. I may try making broth with fish bones soon.
In addition to the bone broth, Dr. McBride recommends to slowly add fermented foods and probiotics into the diet. Her website offers a great amount of information to help get a person started (click here to read).
What started me thinking seriously about intestinal health is a situation that occurred three weeks ago. I caught the flu (I haven’t had the flu since my son was 4 yrs. old).
I didn’t eat a thing for two days and anything I had eaten prior to that, left my body rather quickly. For the next three days, I ate very sparingly.
The reason I mention this is because I made a wonderful discovery.
When I had no food in my system, the RA symptoms subsided greatly. Inflammation in my joints lessened considerably. When food was re-introduced, RA symptoms increased again.
This flu episode started me wondering if this RA autoimmune disease has something to do with the state of my gut.
I figure it’s worth spending the time to see if the GAPS diet and Clean program have an effect on the state of my health. If nothing else, it will keep my busy and out of trouble (hehehe).
That’s all for now. Thank you for taking the time to read this learning about health series. Wishing everyone a wonderful week!
The Meaning for my Life 
Hi Marianne,
Glad you are feeling better and that you found something that may help your symptoms. All the best.
Thank you Cathy. 🙂 It is quite the journey.
What a fascinating discover, Maryanne! Would love to know more about this. Hope the broth diet continues to help alleviate pain, etc.
Sorry to have been so absent recently. Preparing to move to Ecuador has been more consuming than I’d imagined. Hopefully things will settle down once we get there, but preparing to sell our house has been a huge task.
Take care, my friend. I’ve missed you!
Hugs,
Kathy
Thank you Kathy.
No worries. I’m so excited to hear about your move to Ecuador.
All the best to you!
Hugs back,
Marianne
What an exciting discovery! I hope your broth experiment provides ongoing relief. I recently read about using broth in Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions. Let us know how it goes.
Yes, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. Right now I’m nursing some injuries from a bad fall on Monday. Hopefully, the bone broth will bring a speedy recovery.
It’s wonderful to read about your discovery! Gut health is a prerequisite to a strong immune system. If you heal the guts, you heal your body as a whole. Bone broths are indeed great for our health. Instead of vinegar to extract the minerals, I would suggest using lemon juice for the same effect and minus the negative effects. Also, depending on your blood type, not all bones are beneficial. Type B’s are best off to avoid chicken, whereas Type O’s will benefit from both beef and chicken bone broths. I have tried turkey and it not only tastes good but is OK for all types. I also want to make more bone broths for increasing my “yang qi”, to aid circulation and detoxification. Look forward to reading more about your bone broth adventures!
Thank you so much for this information, Louisa. I will try lemon instead and find out what blood type I have. I also read about drinking the broth from boiled black sesame seeds as being great for kidney energy. I’ll have to add this into my regime as well. Thanks for your comment. 🙂
Bone broth is health-changing! It also forms part of the healing protocol for curing tooth for many people.
Good to know it helps the teeth as well. Thank you for reading and commenting, Homemaking. 🙂
How interesting that you discovered this! I have been on a 3 week detox program myself and have felt really wonderful. Felt the best when eating only fruits, vegetables, lentils, healthy oils and seasonings the first week, but am still feeling pretty darn good. Can’t wait to hear what more you discover on this journey and how it affects your RA.
A 3 week detox diet – great going, Kathy! I can’t wait to see what happens as well. I’m over a week late for a RA injection and I’m not feeling any worse for wear. This week I’m recuperating from a fall and haven’t been hungry much, although I am drinking the bone broth and making vegetable soup with it. In addition, I’m trying to increase my consumption of probiotics and fermented foods like sauerkraut juice. Here’s to a healthy gut! 🙂
So glad you’ve found something that seems to be helping you, Marianne. 🙂
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