When Katie started drinking broth on the GAPS Intro Diet she felt even more bloated than before and had headaches every day. She thought it was a die-off reaction, but when it didn’t stop after a whole week she came to me for help. I asked her exactly how she was making her broth, and she explained that she was slow cooking bones and meat for at least 24 hours, like she learned on a popular Real Food blog. I suggested that this might be the issue, and that she should try making meat stock for the first few months of GAPS instead.
You, like Katie, might be wondering what’s the difference between meat stock and bone broth? In the Gut and Psychology Syndrome book, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride refers to both meat stock. It’s easy to get confused by these two terms, especially because Dr. Natasha refers to them the opposite way that chefs refer to them.
For the GAPS Diet, meat stock refers to a piece of meat on the bone that’s cooked just barely covered in water for 2 to 3 hours at a simmer. The benefit of meat stock is that it’s more gentle and easy to digest and it’s what to use on GAPS, but particularly during the GAPS Intro Diet. If you have a diagnosis of Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth, or SIBO, you want to stick with meat stock. Bone broth has nutrients that are broken down, called glycoproteins, and these can actually act to feed SIBO bacteria.
Bone broth is described as bones with or without meat that are long simmered on the stove for somewhere between 6 to 36 hours over a very low heat. The benefit of bone broth is that as you slow cook the bones for a long time, more of the minerals and other nutrients are drawn from the bones and imparted into your broth. In the long run bone broth is useful for helping you re-mineralize your body. You have to make sure that you can tolerate bone broth before you start it.
I’m not a fan of simmering bones all by themselves. I actually find that that’s not super flavorful, so even when I make long cooked bone broth I always add a little bit of meat, or I’ll use a cut of meat that’s already on the bone. I just find this makes for more flavorful stock.
How in the world do you make enough meat stock for a family of 6. From my calculations we need to make one batch a day. So 7 whole chicken. That is a lot of chickens. I could not find anywhere online to purchase meat stock that would qualify for the GAPS diet. And that is if we drink 3 cups each. If we want to take in any more than we need more chickens. The time to make 7 batches of stock is not a problem. But the amount of chicken, both the cost of 7 chickens and the quantity of meat left to eat (We do not eat a whole chicken in one meal) is huge. How do people deal with that? Thanks for the help
Hi Genevieve, I actually don’t recommend using a whole chicken to make stock regularly because you get way too much meat. Ask your butcher for the carcass, feet, heads, and necks. They are cheaper and your stock will turn out tasty and gelatinous, with no leftover meat. You can also buy these parts online at Northstar Bison, if you can’t find them locally. You are correct, there is still no commercially made GAPS meat stock. Fingers crossed that changes! 🙂
Great article! I am just getting started but so far the meat broth and Gaps beginning diet seems to be helping me despite severe histamine intolerance and MCAS. I have been using 1 leg of lamb w/meat at a time. I was wondering if I freeze the lamb leg bone after using it, would it make the meat broth better if I add it to the pot when I cook the next leg of lamb w/meat? Also, for my circumstances would adding a small portion of chicken feet to my broth make it too high in histamine? Thanks!
That’s great to hear! For the Intro Diet, keep your meat/bones to one cooking session. This keeps the stock most gentle. The chicken feet *might* work – especially if they were raised on a corn and soy-free diet. I’ve seem mixed results for people with MCAS. Let your body be your guide.