Bone Broth

Bone Broth

Bone Broth

By Andrew Sterman

FOOD

Bone broth

Bone broth has long been a secret both of fine restaurant kitchens and food therapists, but in the last few years it has become easy to find in food markets, restaurants, and even take-out places that specialize in chef-made broths. Bone broth has now come into the spotlight.

Is it a Paleo drink? Hardly. Do we really have to discuss the plausibility of prehistoric hunters cooking bones for two days, fighting off scavengers, patiently waiting for their broth, discussing how to skim foam or when to add aromatics, all tens of thousands of years before the invention of the first cooking pot?

In the dietary branch of Chinese Medicine, cooking bones into stock is a method to extract the essence of the animal for easiest digestion and assimilation. There is something shamanic about it; we are trying to absorb the deepest digestible energy of the animal. High cuisine chefs rely on stocks for finesse and depth, but the focus in dietary therapy is on the deep resonance between the bone essence of a long-cooked stock and our own deepest level: bones, joints, blood building marrow, kidneys, reproductive system and the very special organ that resides surrounded by bone, the brain.

That’s the theory, but does it do anything in practice? I’ll leave the studies to others, but in my experience, bone stocks are extremely helpful for individuals who are depleted or run down from stressful lifestyles, overexertion, poor diet, sleep problems, specific illnesses or old age.  Drinking good bone stock is grounding, fortifying, and stimulating all at the same time.

Making bone stock at home is easy, but it’s not for the fainthearted. There are bones in there, and the best stock is made from knuckles, knees, tendons… there’s no getting around it. This may not be paleolithic, but it certainly is primal.

According to the classical teachings of Chinese Medicine, each type of bone stock has a different influence within us:

  • Beef bone broth: strengthens our constitutional health and is very anchoring.
  • Chicken stock: stimulates our immune response and is more warming.
  • Turkey and duck stock: somewhere in between.
  • Fish bone broth: often forgotten but is fantastic as both a cooking stock and a health tonic, resonating with the skeletal and reproductive level. Fish bone stock cooks more quickly (fish bones are softer and quite skinny); 6-8 hours is ideal, but even one hour will make a good fish bone broth, useful for sipping or as a base for other cooking.
  • Shellfish: offers a wide variety to work with: lobster and crab shell (more stimulating or warming, for adrenal exhaustion), or oyster and clam shell (more calming or cooling, for emotional stress).

Although not bones, broth made from dried scallops, mussels, shrimp, abalone and other shellfish are also common and important, particularly in Asian cuisine. Shellfish are constantly in the process of creating their shells and are therefore seen as particularly supportive to our own bone maintenance level. All of these stocks provide minerals, including calcium. Vegetarian stocks can also be made. To make a vegetarian stock that approximates a bone broth, use seaweed (usually kombu/kelp) and dried mushrooms. These vegetarian foods resonate at the constitutional level.  I make vegetarian stocks often, for sipping or as a soup base, and they’re ready in only 20 minutes.

Stock recipes are personal. They have been the secret of the kitchen, and rightly so. These stocks reach deeply within us, and the constitutional level of our own health is private, it’s hidden, it is the reservoir of life’s mysteries. In the kitchen, what lurks beneath the surface of an ever-so-slightly gurgling stock pot is mysterious, like what lurks below the surface of the sea.  It’s always a surprise when you see something pop up from under the surface. But the mysterious quality of bone stock is not based on the recipes being secret, rather, it’s the mysterious level at which they work within us. This is not diminished at all by sharing the recipe.  Below is my recipe for basic beef bone broth, rich enough with vegetables and kitchen herbs to be called a soup.

If this is all it takes to be an urbane caveman, I’m in.

Beef Bone Broth Recipe
Serves: 4-8 quarts (depending on pot capacity)
Prep time: 30 minutes
Total time: two days
Ingredients:
fresh or frozen beef knee bones | 3-5 pounds
leek | 1 large or 2 small, white part and some green, chunked
carrots | 3 or more, medium, chunked
celery | 2-3 stalks, trimmed and coarsely chopped
olive oil | 1-2 Tbsp
salt | 1-3 Tbsp
vinegar (apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, or balsamic) | 1/4 cup
dried mushrooms (black or porcini) | 6-8 whole mushrooms, 1-2 ounces if porcini (or combine)
kombu | 2 strips
bay leaf | 2
seed spices | 1 tsp each of mustard seed, black peppercorns, fenugreek seed; 1/2 tsp allspice, 3-5 star anise pods, 6 green cardamom pods
other kitchen herbs | 6 red jujube dates, 1/2 handful goji berries, peel from 1/2 tangerine or mandarin orange (omit if not available)
water | 4-8 quarts, depending upon your pot size

Shopping Note: Buy knee and ankle bones from a good butcher shop.  They will quarter them with a table saw to allow best cooking.  Marrow bones are a delicacy for some but avoid them for making broth.  We are looking for the collagen in the bone joints, not the marrow of the long bones.

Directions

Roast the bones on a baking sheet in 350˚F oven for 20-30 minutes.

While bones are roasting, coarsely chop the leek, carrot, celery and any other root vegetable that you may have ready for the stock pot (try daikon, parsnip, etc.)  Toss the vegetables into the largest pot you have, add the olive oil, start them over medium-high heat with a good pinch of salt. Add the dried mushrooms and the kombu strips. Add the seeds spices and kitchen herbs.  Use aromatic spices but avoid hot peppers or garlic; those spices are too stimulating to be used here for best health.  Bone broth resonates with our deepest level of health, a level that deserves the cook’s respectful support and should not be overly stimulated.

When the bones have browned, move them from the oven to the stock pot (discard the fat they give off). Cover with plenty of water (your pot should be about 3/4 full of water). Bring to a simmer but not a full boil—boiling can turn the broth cloudy and slightly bitter.  The stock should have a slow-rising bubble every few seconds, no more.

Add the vinegar (I often include two or three types of vinegar to add complexity). The acidity of vinegar draws calcium and collagen from the bones into the broth.  The finished broth will not be acidic.

Simmer, partially covered for one or two days, non-stop. I often let bone stock cook for two and a half days. Check periodically that it is hot enough for an occasional bubble but not hot enough to reach a true boil. Too cool won’t extract essence from the bones and could at least potentially allow some bacteria to grow; too hot and the stock isn’t of the highest quality. Add water if needed.

After a day or two, pour the stock through a strainer into another pot, and discard the bones, vegetables and herbs. When cool enough, ladle the strained broth into refrigerator containers; refrigerate overnight. Fat will separate to the top for easy removal and the stock will show its character by congealing through the natural gelatin from the bones. Some may wish to reserve the beef fat for other uses, but fat is not needed in the bone broth itself—it’s the essence from bones and vegetables rendered through the cooking process that we’re after.    

Warm portions in a saucepan to use. Some people like to sip bone broth straight, others like to open its taste by diluting it with some warm water. Salt to taste as desired. For superbly nourishing cooking, use beef bone stock as the foundation for soups, braise dishes, sauces and stews. For the home cook, the addition of a great stock is the secret you need to match fine restaurant cooking.


Andrew Sterman is author of Welcoming Food: Diet as Medicine for Home Cooks and Other Healers, available Fall 2019. He sees patients in New York City for Chinese medicine dietary therapy, medical qigong and meditation.  Mr Sterman began studying cooking in 1988 at the Natural Gourmet Cookery School and at the same time entered Chinese medicine through qigong and tai chi. In order to deepen his understanding of food energetics, in 2001 Mr Sterman began formal study of Chinese herbal medicine, diagnostics, medical theory, and dietary therapy with Daoist master Jeffrey Yuen. Mr Sterman writes a regular dietary column for the Golden Flower Chinese Herbs newsletter.  In addition to his extensive travel schedule, Mr Sterman teaches food theory and practical home cooking in Manhattan, where he lives with his family. 

andrewsterman.com/food

Fermented

Fermented

Fermented

By LouLou Piscatore

FOOD

HEX brand Fermented Sauerkraut
Fermented foods have shown up for thousands of years in almost every culture in the world.  Historically they have been a way to preserve the harvest and make foods more digestible. We now understand that fermentation transforms food —enhancing nutrients, while adding naturally occurring probiotics (healthy bacteria) to the diet. In recent years, naturally fermented foods have been getting a lot of attention because they help strengthen the gut microbiome —the “good bacteria,” or “gut bacteria,” that live in your digestive tract. These healthy bacteria impact our digestion, immune system, heart health and even our mental health.

To learn more I chatted with my friend Meaghan Carpenter, an honest to goodness “Food Alchemist,” and co-founder of Hex Ferments.

What are fermented foods?

Fermentation is a process of microbial transformation that can be achieved using sea salt for vegetable ferments, a culture (like kombucha and kefir), an active starter like sourdough or yogurt, or inoculated and left to grow like koji spores on rice for miso.” What is created is a “living food,” which contains live, healthy bacteria or probiotics.

The fermentation process for veggies involves cutting or shredding to create surface area, and adding salt, “which releases water and exposes the sugars and nutrients that the lactobacillus bacteria need to grow and thrive. In a short time the vegetables transform into tangy, nutrient-dense and probiotic-rich sauerkraut, kimchi or pickles.

Why are fermented foods important?

They make anything you are eating instantly more bioavailable. There is a reason why you get a pickle with your sandwich or kraut on a hot dog. Fermented vegetables help our bodies to break down fats, nutrients and coat our digestive organs with beneficial bacteria that will make digestion and assimilation quicker and more efficient.

They are important for healthy gut bacteria, which is important for a healthy immune system, and even impacts mood. “90% of our immune system and serotonin is produced in our gut. Both are impacted by our gut bacteria. The more of a diverse bacterial environment you have in your body, the stronger your immune system. And it will help keep you happy! (Serotonin is the ‘feel good’ brain chemical.)

And they add fiber, vitamins and minerals that are already pre-digested. Think of your gut as a lush rainforest that you need to keep in balance with daily doses of delicious sauerkrauts, kimchi and kombucha tea. The more lush your forest the better you feel. So when you are feeling over-indulged, bloated, hungover etc. reach for a bite of sauerkraut or kombucha.

Not all fermented foods are created equal

To get the benefits of “living food” look for fermented vegetables that have been made using just sea salt and left unpasteurized. This ensures that the process has been done traditionally and not using a shortcut like vinegar. Look for the words “naturally fermented” on the label, and for telltale bubbles in the liquid when you open the jar.

Or make your own! Here’s a recipe from Hex Ferments for a quick Local Winter Kraut:

INGREDIENTS:

  • 5 pounds green cabbage
  • 2 pounds napa cabbage
  • 3 medium carrots
  • 5 small red turnips
  • 1 small onion
  • 1 Bosc pear or apple
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tablespoons grated ginger with skin
  • 1 orange juiced, approximately ¼ cup
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons dried pepper or to taste (Espelette, cayenne, or jalapeño)
  • 4 to 6 tablespoons coarse sea salt (taste after 4, then salt to taste)

 

DIRECTIONS:

  1. Wash produce well, and remove any bad parts. Reserve 5 to 6 outer cabbage leaves, set aside. Cut cabbage into 4 sections, and remove the core. Slice produce into thin, bite-sized pieces.
  2. Place everything in a large bowl, add salt, spices (wear gloves if adding hot pepper!) and orange juice. Mix and massage with your hands. Squeeze! Work those veggies! Work salt into the produce well to release the water and create a brine.
  3. Once a nice pool of brine has collected in the bottom of the bowl, approximately 2 to 3 cups, pack vegetables into a clean, 2-gallon crock or wide-mouth glass container. Be sure to push down with your hands to remove air pockets. After all vegetables are packed in to the jar, press down well so that the brine covers the surface, creating an anaerobic environment. Layer reserved cabbage leaves onto the surface of the kraut. Place a weight (a plate topped with a jar filled with water works well) over the surface, cover the top of the vessel with a clean towel and secure with a rubber band. Kraut should be covered in its brine with room at the top of the vessel to allow for expansion over the first few days of active fermentation.
  4. Date outside of the vessel and place in a location that is away from direct sunlight, and maintains a relatively even temperature; 64-72 degrees is ideal, higher temperatures will speed up fermentation, cooler temperatures will slow it down.
  5. After 5 to 10 days, active fermentation will slow as lactic acid bacteria begin to take up residence. Kraut will continue to ferment vegetables into sour, tangy Winter Kraut. At this point, jar up kraut into smaller portions and refrigerate or take what you want from crock and enjoy its flavorful changes until it’s all gone.

 

Different types of fermented foods

Kombucha: a fermented sweetened black or green tea drink

Kvass: fermented sauerkraut or beet juice.  In slavic cultures it is made from rye bread.

Yogurt/Kefir: milk fermented by added bacterias

Kimchi: Korean salted and fermented vegetables (usually napa cabbage and Korean radish)

Sauerkraut: finely-cut raw cabbage fermented by lactic acid bacteria.

Miso/Tempeh/Natt: fermented soybean products

Sourdough: bread made with fermented dough using naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeast

Olives: brine cured and naturally fermented

Pickles: vegetables fermented in brine (not vinegar)


Meaghan Carpenter is a “Food Alchemist” and Co-Founder of HEX Ferments, an award-winning, Baltimore-based fermented foods company. HEX Ferments specializes in creating living foods (sauerkrauts, kimchi, pickles and Kombucha) from local-organic and sustainably grown ingredients. HEX Ferments was born from a performance art piece that was a collaboration with her photographer husband. The concept of the art-piece touched on her pursuits of (re)creating gut-healthy communities centered on local food and delicious edible art. HEX Ferments has been nationally and internationally recognized for its creations, sustainability practices, fermentation education and advancing the frontier of the fermented arts.

Find them at  https://www.hexferments.com/pages/find-us

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Accessible Yoga

Accessible Yoga

Accessible Yoga

By: Lauren Cap
Photos: Sarit Z. Rogers
YOGA
accessible yoga wheel chair yoga

Jivana Heyman, founder of non-profit organization Accessible Yoga, gives readers a gentle nudge to step into a safe yoga practice that fits the needs of any person in his book, Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body. With compassion and years of experience, we are guided into an accessible yoga practice, literally for every body. Yoga Editor for NY YOGA LIFE magazine, Lauren Cap had an opportunity to chat with Jivana right before the pandemic in early 2020, and shares her interview below.

I first want to thank you for creating Accessible Yoga to make yoga available to all communities with various physical abilities. It’s important to have information like this at our fingertips to remind everyone that yoga is most importantly about feeling good, not looking good.

Thank you for your interest in Accessible Yoga, and for your awareness that yoga is really about feeling good, not about how you look or what kind of poses you can do. It’s unfortunate that the image of yoga in the media is so limiting when the benefits of yoga are so powerful and are available for everyone. In fact, I often think of how it’s those of us who are struggling the most who can really benefit from yoga.

I came to yoga to help me deal with the pain and stress in my life, and I’m so grateful for how yoga has given me tools to help me with the challenges of being human. I feel like I owe a debt of gratitude to give back in some way, and my mission is to challenge those limited ideas we hold on to about what yoga is and how it works.

The most important thing for people to understand about yoga is that it is primarily a mental practice – working with the mind to reduce stress and connect with the essence of who we are. I often say, “Yoga isn’t about having a flexible body, it’s about having a flexible mind.” With that deeper understanding of the practice, it’s easy to find ways to make all the practices of yoga accessible, whether we’re talking about the poses, breathing practices, relaxation techniques or meditation.

The use of pose orientation in this book is very creative as we are able to maintain the elements of the traditional practice while offering an accessible way to receive the healing benefits of yoga. How do you empower practitioners to look beyond their physical limitations and feel confident in their Accessible Yoga practice?

I think knowledge is power, and one of the challenges in yoga is that there’s this feeling that the classical poses can’t be adapted or somehow they lose their power. Most of the poses we’re practicing these days evolved over the past few hundred years. It’s really the philosophy, meditation and breathing practices that are most ancient. The more people understand the underlying benefits of individual poses, the more they can find those benefits in different variations. That’s the way I’ve organized my book – trying to help people look beyond the superficial appearance of a pose and consider why they’re doing it. The “why” of a practice is the key to adaptation and accessibility.

What are some challenges you’ve witnessed from students who may be reluctant to a practice that doesn’t resemble what they see on social media or magazines? How do you work with your students to identify those needs to create a safe space of acceptance?

Safety and acceptance are the two most important elements of a yoga class. I want people to feel like they belong in the space, and that they will be safe – physically and emotionally. In order to do so, I often directly address the misrepresentation of yoga in the media. I try to teach my students about what yoga is – working with the mind to connect with the heart.

The main challenge that comes out of the misrepresentation of yoga within yoga classes is the idea that more is better. I constantly see students straining and potentially injuring themselves. It can take experience to learn about how far to go into poses and how long to hold them. I worry that with the competitive nature of our Western culture, many people are getting hurt in yoga. I also worry about the emotional suffering that people experience in yoga classes – feelings of not being good enough, or that they don’t belong.

There’s a common phrase, “The students are our teachers.” Along with your extensive training and experience, do many of these sequences and alternative practices come from practitioner feedback?

Yes, pretty much everything I teach comes from collaborating with my students and from other teachers who have inspired me. A key element of accessible yoga is collaboration, which is based on the idea of seeing the student as your equal and lifting them up. The traditional teacher/student hierarchy can be disempowering and lead to many problems, including much of the abuse we are seeing in the yoga world.

Collaboration is a key element in my teaching because it asks the student to step into their inner wisdom and sharpen their awareness. It can help them take on their yoga practice in a more profound way. In many ways, my goal is to make the students independent yoga practitioners who aren’t reliant on me. The more they feel that they have their own practice the more yoga will become an important part of their lives.

How has your personal practice changed over the years from when you first started?

I’ve been practicing yoga intently since I was in my early twenties, and now I’m in my early fifties, so a lot has changed. As my body ages, I try to find a practice that is supportive of my wellbeing in every way. When I was younger I would push myself into some of the more gymnastic poses, but after a lot of injuries, I’ve finally learned my lesson.

Nowadays, I don’t plan what I’m going to do when I get on the mat. I like to take a moment to notice how I’m feeling and consider what will be most supportive of my body and my mind in the moment. In fact, my mental state may be the most compelling part of my daily practice. I ask myself, do I need a more inward, slow, gentle practice with restorative poses and longer pranayama? Or do I need a faster, fun practice with music? Is there a part of my body that needs to be protected, strengthened, or stretched? Each day is a new adventure.

I realize that for a new practitioner that might be too much to take on. In the beginning it’s fine to do the same practice every day and notice how it feels. Gaining sensitivity to what’s happening inside your body. Introspection is an essential skill that comes with practice. Also trying out all different styles is a great way to learn about all the different tools that yoga offers.

What has surprised you the most since founding Accessible Yoga?

I’ve been most surprised by the incredible reaction I’ve gotten, and how much this work resonates with so many people who love yoga deeply. A big part of the mission of Accessible Yoga, the non-profit, is to support yoga teachers who are making yoga accessible. I’ve been amazed by the work that yoga teachers are doing all over the world. These are teachers who are serving day after day to bring yoga to communities that have been disempowered or underserved. They are often serving without recognition, and sometimes without even getting paid!

Wherever I travel, I meet yoga practitioners and teachers who have found the power of yoga and are sharing it with others. Their dedication and service is what propels me to continue to work for greater understanding and to break down barriers to access. All the issues that limit access to wellness also limit access to yoga – racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc., are all issues in the yoga world.

Physical adjustments in class has been a hot topic recently. To quote you, “Ongoing consent means that just because a student gives you consent at one point in class doesn’t mean that you have consent to touch at another time…Ongoing consent means that we open up a dialogue with our students during class…you can create an environment where declining touch is accepted and even celebrated, where students are learning to connect with themselves and speak up for what they need.” Do you have any additional comments on this topic?

It’s very important that we have more discussions in the yoga community about the lack of consent for touch that is happening in a lot of classes. Most of us weren’t trained in how to gain consent from our students, and we assume that hands-on adjustments are what the students want. I think we’re just starting to address this issue as a community, and I’m sure we’ll see more policy changes in the coming years to create more clarity around this topic.

The first thing we need is a clear scope of practice for yoga teachers, as well as a thorough code of conduct. We currently don’t have either, and it means that many yoga teachers are offering touch, adjustments and other practices without appropriate training. It also means that as a community we don’t have clear guidelines to follow to keep students safe.

Ironically, the real power of yoga resides in its ability to calm the mind and allow us to turn inward. I think we need to turn to the heart of yoga, which is already accessible, in order to make the practice safer and more effective for all our students.

Learn more: jivanaheyman.com

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BREATHING ROOM

BREATHING ROOM

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BREATHING ROOM

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Creating Breathing Room:
Why Breathing Room? For us, it is a fitting reflection of what we need at each moment, the challenging times we live in, and our vision of community: inclusive, expansive, supportive, nourishing and inspiring.

We are committed to fostering our growth as humans in a world in need of compassion and courage. We welcome all who come with the value of acceptance regardless of skin color, body shape, age, religion, family ancestry, country of origin, love preference or gender identity.

BREATHING ROOM

1708 Lincoln Avenue
Alameda, CA 94501

1708 Lincoln Avenue
Alameda, CA 94501
(510) 255-1271

breathingroomshop@gmail.com

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