Keto bone broth has hit the health scene as the next healing elixir. Many health gurus and naturopaths tout bone broth as being good for weight loss, detoxification, and joint health, but is there any truth to this?
On the surface, it sounds like another health fad.
The Truth About The Bone Broth Diet and Bone Broth
Bone broth has been gaining popularity lately due to the recent release of the book titled “Dr. Kellyann’s Bone Broth Diet” and the plethora of bone broth protein products on supplement store shelves. Even people who are not health-conscious have been getting doses of bone broth on NPR, Time Magazine, Today, ABC News, and New York Times.
The concept is simple enough. Put bones in water, simmer them for hours to days, and you get a bone broth with nutrients that many of us don’t get in our diets.
But before you get caught up in the whirlwind of another health fad, it is important to understand if bone broth is as beneficial as many gurus, practitioners, and publications claim.
Let’s start with the bone broth diet. The results that people get after just 21 days on this diet are quite remarkable, but what does bone broth have to do with it?
The 21-Day Paleo Fasting Plan (Bone Broth Optional)
When we look closer at the Bone Broth Diet, it is easy to see where the results are really coming from. The first 21 days of the diet consist of a 5-day modified Paleo diet with a 2-day bone broth fast.
Almost everyone who switches from a western type diet to a Paleo diet will experience health improvements and weight loss. This is mainly because the Paleo diet removes processed foods from your diet and replaces them with high fiber and high-protein foods that are much more satiating. The consumption of these types of foods (i.e., vegetables and high-quality meats) cause you to eat more vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants and fewer calories than before. The result is fat loss and better health.
When you add a weekly 2-day fast to this paleo diet then you will increase the weight loss and health improvements even further. The 2-day fast will stimulate weight loss and health improvement due to the combination of a lack of calories, autophagy, and ketosis. If you’re interested in learning more about fasting, feel free to read our article on Intermittent Fasting on a Ketogenic Diet >
(For clarification on the science terms: autophagy is the process of cellular clean-up that helps your cells function more efficiently and removes damaged, cancerous cells. Ketosis is when your body burns fat and ketones for fuel. These two processes are what make fasting a valuable adjunct to treatments for cancer, infection, and obesity.)
If someone simply fasted for 2 days every week without any other dietary or lifestyle changes, it would lead to rapid weight loss (up to four pounds of water weight in the first week). Over the course of 21 days, the person would lose fat and have better health parameters (as long as they don’t overeat on non-fasting days).
What happens when the 2-days of fasting is followed by the Paleo diet? An incredible health improvement plan that will help you lose weight and inches. This will happen regardless if you include bone broth in the diet or not.
This means that bone broth is not the reason why people lose so much weight and feel better on the Bone Broth Diet. (But, it may be the reason why people lose wrinkles — more on that later.) A better name for this diet would be the “21-Day Paleo Fasting Plan (Bone Broth Optional)”.
However, this does not mean that bone broth is useless. There is some merit behind the health claims about the miraculous effects of bone broth. In fact, it can provide each diet (especially the ketogenic diet) with health-promoting nutrients that it is missing.
A Life Without Bone Broth
Let’s look at the ketogenic diet, for example. Meat is the main source of protein for ketogenic dieters.
This is wonderful for building and maintaining muscles, connective tissue, and other cells, but it can also trigger mechanisms that promote cancer growth and heart disease. This is due to specific amino acids that are found in high levels in meat protein.
A Potential Problem with Too Much Meat? IGF-1, mTOR, and Cancer
When we consume protein from meat, the body responds by releasing a hormone called insulin and activating two pathways called IGF-1 and mTOR so that you can utilize the protein to promote the growth of your cells.
In other words, insulin, IGF-1, and mTOR cater a party for your cells to celebrate the abundance. As we age, however, cancerous cells start to crash the party.
When we are children (and after we finish an intense workout), the amino acids from the meat protein we consume tend to aid the growth of cells necessary for our health (e.g., the cells in our bones, muscles, blood, and organs).
However, when we are fully grown, rarely work out, and overconsume meat each day, cancer cells are more likely to feed and thrive off of the catering that IGF-1, mTOR, and insulin provide.
An Overabundance of Leucine and Methionine: The Real Culprit & Its Simple Solution
One particular amino acid called leucine is a potent stimulator of the secretion of insulin and the activation of the IGF-1 and mTOR pathways. Meat and dairy proteins tend to be highest in leucine, which is why products like whey protein and chocolate milk are heavily marketed as “muscle builders.” In the context of an unhealthy diet and lifestyle, however, they may stimulate the growth and proliferation of cancer cells and disease as well.
Another amino acid that can cause problems when consumed in high amounts is methionine. This amino acid is abundant in dairy and meat proteins, and it leads to an increase in homocysteine levels in the blood. Homocysteine is a significant risk factor for serious diseases like heart disease, stroke, and mental illness.
The effects that consuming too much leucine and methionine have on an inactive body may explain why red meat consumption has been found to be associated with cancer and heart disease in some studies. However, this doesn’t mean that you should switch to a vegan ketogenic diet.
In fact, by eating more than just the muscle meat from the animal, we can mitigate the potential adverse effects of consuming too much leucine and methionine. This is because animal skin and connective tissue contain high amounts of several other amino acids that can help prevent disease, cancer growth, and intestinal issues.
What does this have to do with the Bone Broth Diet? One of the best sources of these amino acids is bone broth.
The Brilliant Benefits of Bone Broth
Bone broth is a savory liquid consisting of the water in which the bones and cartilage of meat or fish have been simmered. The nutritional content of each bone broth varies based on the bones used, cooking time, and cooking method, but you can almost guarantee that you will find these nutrients to some degree in every bone broth (and experience their health benefits).
Collagen and Gelatin
Collagen makes up about 30 percent of the protein in your body and is the main component of connective tissues like cartilage, ligaments, tendons, bone, and skin. Gelatin forms when the collagen is simmered during the process of making bone broth, which gives the broth a Jell-O like consistency when it is cooled.
Although this technically is an animal protein, it has much less leucine than the protein found in meat and dairy. It also has less leucine than common vegan sources of protein like soy.
But don’t let the lack of leucine fool you. Collagen still supports the growth of muscle tissue. (You may not need whey protein after all.)
Consuming collagen helps us build healthy skin as well. One double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study from 2015 found that supplementing with only 2.5 grams of collagen peptides lead to a clear improvement in cellulite and improved skin health over a period of 6 months.
Another study found that supplementing with collagen protein improved skin health after only 4 weeks in elderly women. These results are amazing for such a small amount of a protein that we rarely pay attention to.
What is to blame for these outstanding results? The unique combination of amino acids that are found in bone broth.
Glycine
Collagen contains an abundance of the amino acid glycine (in higher amounts than any other food). Glycine helps control blood sugar levels and prevents the negative effects caused by having too much methionine.
Glycine is also important for the production of myoglobin and hemoglobin for oxygen transport in the muscle and blood respectively. This means that it improves your exercise performance and your ability to recover from those exercises.
The digestive system is aided by glycine as well. It protects us from gastric ulcers, stimulates stomach acid production, and helps us digest fats. The effects of glycine are also felt in almost every other cell in the body because it restores the body’s master antioxidant, glutathione.
Proline
About seventeen percent of collagen is made up of an amino acid called proline. Proline helps regulate mTOR — aiding in cell growth and proliferation, while it clears up waste products and free radicals from cells. The effects of proline make it less likely that the activation of the mTOR pathway will lead to cancer growth.
Glutamine
Glutamine is abundant in the blood and is one of the few amino acids that can cross the blood-brain barrier. It is essential for the health of the intestinal barrier of our gut and the function of our immune cells because these cells prefer to consume glutamine for energy.
Glycosaminoglycans
When you make bone broth using bones with the tendons, ligaments, and cartilage still attached, you will find natural sources glycosaminoglycans in it.
Not familiar with the term?
How about the popular joint support supplement called chondroitin sulfate? This is a glycosaminoglycan that is found in the cartilage, and it protects our joints from wear and tear.
Glycosaminoglycans are complex carbohydrates that attach to proteins to form parts of your connective tissue and synovial fluid (the lubricant that surrounds some of your joints). They also play an important role in skin health by promoting skin hydration and wound repair. Combine this with the beneficial effects that collagen has on reducing cellulite and improving skin health, and you have a skin health supplement in your bone broth that actually works.
Specific glycosaminoglycans serve other important roles in the body as well. The glycosaminoglycan called heparin sulfate has been shown to help regulate immune system function, and the most well-known glycosaminoglycan, chondroitin sulfate, plays an important role in boosting our cognitive function.
What About Minerals? The Big Bone Broth Blunder
Many popular bloggers, diet gurus, and even some doctors tout bone broth as being packed with minerals, but is there any evidence to back up this claim?
The short answer is “no”.
The research on bone broth is scarce. Most of the conclusions about its mineral content are based on the assumption that bone broth must contain a lot of minerals because bones have a lot of minerals.
This is a reasonable assumption, but when it was put to the test twice, it failed. The first scientific study that I could find on bone broth was published back in 1934. It found that chicken bone broth contained only a trace amount of minerals, but this was over 80 years ago. We need something more recent to confirm these findings.
In 2014, one of the readers of Alive.com sent multiple batches of bone broth and vegetable broth to the lab for mineral analysis. What were the results?
After 3 large bison bones were pressure cooked for 24 hours, the only significant change was in sodium and potassium content. Sodium increased by about a gram per liter of broth and potassium by a little over half a gram per liter.
Compare that to the vegetable broth that was made from nettles and dandelion leaf and pressured cooked for only 3 hours then left to steep overnight. In this broth, potassium was 3x higher and magnesium was 5x higher than the bone broth. So, should you use nettle and dandelion broth instead?
My suggestion is to stick with collagen and glycosaminoglycan rich bone broth for all of the benefits we went over earlier. If you are looking to supplement with minerals then you can make a low-carbohydrate vegetable soup using your bone broth as the broth. Add in some vegetables like spinach, swiss chard, kale, and asparagus because they are packed with potassium and magnesium.
You can also try one of our soup recipes (like the BBQ Chicken Soup or the Roasted Red Bell Pepper and Cauliflower Soup), and have it with a Red Pepper Spinach Salad. Put some avocado on the salad and use bone broth as the base for your soup, and you’ll have a delicious, nutrient-packed, and keto-friendly meal.
The Takeaway — The Ketogenic Diet is Better With Bone Broth
By adding bone broth to your keto lifestyle (along with other health-promoting foods and resistance training), you can maximize the benefits of keto while minimizing the potential downsides of too much leucine and methionine.
Bone broth is packed with the highest amount of glycine compared to any other food. This amino acid, as well as the other amino acids found in bone broth, can help improve many aspects of health.
For quick and easy reference, here are the tried and true benefits of bone broth:
- Bone broth is satiating. Bone broth and bone broth soups are rich, nourishing, and satisfying. It has virtually zero carbs and few calories, so you can indulge in bone broth even while you are on the ketogenic diet or fasting.
- Bone broth is packed with collagen. Collagen helps reduce cellulite, improve skin health, and increase lean muscle mass.
- Bone broth helps detoxify your body. It contains the amino acids glycine and proline, which aid your liver in removing toxins from your body.
- Bone broth heals your gut. It helps your digestive system by healing the gut and curing digestive problems.
- Bone broth heals your joints. Bone broth gives you a generous supply of heparin sulfate, chondroitin sulfate, and other glycosaminoglycans that help heal your joints and skin.
- Bone broth is anti-inflammatory. The gut healing and detoxifying properties of bone broth and its amino acids help reduce inflammation.
And guess what? You can have bone broth at any time you want. All you have to do is make it at home, find it at a health food store, or order it straight to your door.
The Best Sources of Bone Broth
Now you know that bone broth contains nutrients essential for the health of every cell in the body, and it can be a valuable addition to every diet (especially the ketogenic diet), but where do you get it?
It is best to get your bone broth from people that source their bones from healthy animals. Here are some high-quality bone broth sources that will ship to directly to your place:
But if you’re feeling ambitious and want to guarantee that you will get all of the benefits from the bone, tendon, cartilage, and ligaments, I suggest making your own bone broth.
The Simplest Bone Broth Recipe
Making bone broth is easier than you think. All it takes is high-quality bones, water, heat, and patience.
Step 1
Save the bones and cartilage from something you already ate, or purchase bones from a quality source like U.S Wellness Meats or White Oak Pastures.
For example, you can use the bones from a chicken, duck, or lamb leg that you just ate.
Bonus Tip: Some of the best broth that I’ve ever made was from two pig feet. It was filled with so much gelatin and glycosaminoglycans that it was like Jell-O at room temperature. Using parts of the animal that has very little meat, but a lot of cartilage, ligaments, tendons, and skin is the best way to make a bone broth that is filled with collagen, gelatin, and glycosaminoglycans. Fish heads, chicken feet, oxtail, and pig feet are all perfect examples of this, and they all make the healthiest broths.
Step 2
Put the bones in a pot, a slow cooker, or a pressure cooker and cover them with water.
- If you’re using a pot, bring the water to a simmer and cook the bones for 8-24 hours.
- If you’re using a slow cooker, cook the bones on the low setting for 8-24 hours.
- If you’re using a pressure cooker, you only need to cook the bones for 2-3 hours.
Bonus Tip: Add 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to the water and let the bones soak for 30 minutes to modestly increase the mineral content of your bone broth.
Flavor Tip: Add half a small onion, a chopped carrot, a stalk of celery, and a pinch of sea salt to improve the flavor of your broth.
Step 3
Sift out all solid particles by using a mesh strainer, so that you have a liquid broth with no solid particles floating in it.
Step 4
Use the broth as a base for soups, add the broth to smoothies, drink it as a hot beverage, store it in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze it.
How To Add Bone Broth To The Ketogenic Diet
Bone broth is the perfect addition to the ketogenic diet, and the best part is that you can consume it in many different ways. Here are four ways you can get bone broth’s health benefits into your diet:
1. Use your favorite bone broth as the broth for every soup that you make.
2. Drink the bone broth as a hot, comforting beverage.
3. Supplement your diet with bone broth protein or a collagen supplement.
4. Make gelatinous keto-friendly snacks like sugar-free gummy candy or start a party with Keto Gelatin Rum Shots using appropriately flavored broth.
If you are looking for a reliable collagen or gelatin supplement, I highly recommend Great Lakes Gelatin Collagen Hydrolysate (good for smoothies and protein shakes) and Great Lakes Beef Gelatin (good for making things thicker and more gelatinous). These protein supplements are sourced from pasture-raised cows, making it better for you and for the environment.
On the other hand, if you are aiming to make the most nutrient-dense broth possible, then you should use the most tendinous and gelatinous parts of the animal. Earlier, I mentioned how I made a great broth from pig’s feet, but oxtail is even better because you can make dinner out of it as well.
You can start your bone broth journey by making Keto Slow Cooker Keto Oxtails. While you chow down on this delicious dish, continue slow cooking the parts that you can’t eat into a nutrient-dense bone broth for future use.
Or — if you are looking to get into ketosis quickly — you can combine bone broth with fasting.
The Bone Broth Fast — A Ketosis Kickstart for The Ketogenic Diet
The Bone Broth Diet suggests fasting from everything but bone broth and water for 2 days a week. This can provide helpful health and weight loss boost, but the benefits don’t stop there for ketogenic dieters.
Bone broth has little to no carbs and provides you with a feeling of nourishment as you fast. It also helps you replenish the fluids that you will lose during fasting (because fasting reduces insulin and glycogen levels). This makes it much easier to handle fasting, while it triggers fat and ketone burning much more quickly than the ketogenic diet can. Basically, this means that a 2-day bone broth fast is the perfect ketosis kickstarter.
During the two-day bone broth fast, you can consume MCT oil and go for an hour-long walk to speed up your transition into ketosis. After the two-day fast, follow the rules of our ketogenic diet guide to reap the benefits of ketosis without having to fast anymore.
Putting It All Together
Although the upsides of bone broth are blown out of proportion by many popular health gurus, it is still the perfect addition to every diet — especially the ketogenic diet.
The amino acids in bone broth help almost every cell detoxify and heal, while the glycosaminoglycans in the bone broth improve the health of the joints, skin, immune system, and brain.
To reap the benefits of bone broth, you can buy it online or in stores. However, these broths aren’t as healthy as the bone broth that you can make at home. Simply by slow cooking the most collagenous and cartilaginous animal parts (e.g., oxtail, fish head, chicken feet, pigs feet), you can make the healthiest bone broth.
Not a fan of all the cooking involved with bone broth? You can supplement with bone broth protein or collagen powder by putting it in a smoothie or protein shake to get most of the benefits of bone broth.
Either way, it doesn’t matter how you decide to consume it. Whether drink it, cook with it, or supplement with it, bone broth is a healthy addition to every diet.
Sources:
- The Bountiful Benefits of Bone Broth: a Comprehensive Guide — Chris Kresser
- The mTOR Signalling Pathway in Human Cancer — NCBI
- Nutrition, insulin, IGF-1 metabolism and cancer risk: a summary of epidemiological evidence. — NCBI
- Leucine supplementation improves acquired growth hormone resistance in rats with protein-energy malnutrition. — NCBI
- Low protein intake is associated with a major reduction in IGF-1, cancer, and overall mortality in the 65 and younger but not older population. — NCBI
- Collagen peptide supplementation in combination with resistance training improves body composition and increases muscle strength in elderly sarcopenic men: a randomised controlled trial — NCBI
- Dietary Supplementation with Specific Collagen Peptides Has a Body Mass Index-Dependent Beneficial Effect on Cellulite Morphology — NCBI
- Over-stimulation of insulin/IGF-1 signaling by western diet may promote diseases of civilization: lessons learnt from laron syndrome — NCBI
- The Amino Acid Composition of Mammalian Collagen and Gelatin — NCBI
- The Associations of Diet with Serum Insulin-like Growth Factor I and Its Main Binding Proteins in 292 Women Meat-Eaters, Vegetarians, and Vegans — Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention
- PROTEIN DEBATE: Which Protein Is Best? — Hammer Nutrition
- Glycine restores glutathione and protects against oxidative stress in vascular tissue from sucrose-fed rats. — NCBI
- Bone Broth Analysis: Reader Research — Alive
- Bone and vegetable broth — NCBI
- Bone Broth — Dr. Kellyann
- The Bone Broth Diet — Kettle and Fire
- Bone Broth Diet: Brilliant or Bust? — The Healthy Home Economist
- Dietary Supplementation with Specific Collagen Peptides Has a Body Mass Index-Dependent Beneficial Effect on Cellulite Morphology — Journal of Medicinal Food
- Discoveries of Mechanisms for Autophagy — Nobel Prize
- Tim Ferriss – 3 Day Fast Protocol Details – Get into Ketosis Quicker and Easier — Eat. Move. Hack.
- Autophagy Is Required to Maintain Muscle Mass — Cell
- Fasting Cycles Retard Growth of Tumors and Sensitize a Range of Cancer Cell Types to Chemotherapy — NCBI
- Fasting and cancer treatment in humans: A case series report — NCBI
- Physical exercise increases autophagic signaling through ULK1 in human skeletal muscle — American Physiological Society
- Acute nutritional ketosis: implications for exercise performance and metabolism — BioMed Central
- Oral supplementation of specific collagen peptides has beneficial effects on human skin physiology: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. — NCBI
I love the information you have here. I can imagine people getting confused about how to make bone broth fit into the keto diet, especially if they’re still beginners.
And, as always, your visuals are fantastic!
I am starting on Keto and this article is incredibly good. I have been doing my broth but now I know there were some details missing. They will improve my broth now.
Great! I’m glad you found the article helpful. Good luck with keto.
If you need any help with anything, let me know.
Hi all,
After deciding I need to shift some weight I’ve spent the last week or so reading and researching the Keto Diet. Needless to say, I’m impressed by the stated health benefits. I was once special forces fit and muscular but now, 8yrs after leaving the forces, I feel and look more like the Gemini boats the ferry them about.
Whilst i’m reasonsbly sure I know how to get going and what to expect and do, I’ve gone throught copious amounts of articles and videos regarding bone broth and their benefits to repair/maintain a healthy stomach from the effects of increased gram-negative bacteria and combat IGF-1 levels. What I am unable to find out is a definitive or even ball park detail as to whether this is neseccary or in what volumes or frequency it should be consumed.
Could anyone tell me if there is a suggested volume and frequency for eating bone broth while losing weight and exercising and post that in a healthy diet maintenance stage (considering building some muscle back up again at a later stage, but one step at a time).
In addition, I’ve noted the time it takes to make this, of which I don’t have the capacity and safety to leave simmering all day (My dogs are very curious creatures when unattended and food smells start floating upon the air). I considered cutting the corner and buying it and the volumes eluded to would have me believe i’d be spending £6.99 on a carton of Kettle and Fire per day! Yes, there are cheaper brands but their contens I’m finding difficult to compare with no frame of reference to compare and are not much cheaper anyway.
Is there an alternative way to getting the same/similar benefits without cutting a hole in my pocket or is it even necessary? Perhaps bullion cubes but I don’t see this as having the same preventative nutrients to stave off gram-negative bacteria or IGF-1 potential issues.
I mention the IGF-1 hormone in its capacity to fuel tumour cells. As a reasonable number of my family members have been taken by cancer over the years It has natrualy raised a few alarm bells and I don’t want to be giving that little monster any oportunity to come knocking on my door.
Any clarity on the above points, be it any misconstrued info that I may have typed plus any recomendations would be greatly received. Now in my early 40’s my hope is to take on Keto as a new lifestyle in conjunction with more exercise.
Many thanks in advance.
P.s. I have no idea if relevant but I live in the UK and thought i’s state htis for any product brand recommendations.
Hey Anthony,
You can get the benefits that you are looking for simply by supplementing with collagen powder or the individual amino acids that are found in high quantities in collagen and bone broth but not in meat.
I’d recommend supplementing with hydrolyzed collagen powder to get the amino acids mentioned in this article that help with IGF-1 levels (glycine) and healing the gut (glutamine).
As far as dosage goes, 3-5 grams of glycine seems to be ideal, and taking more is not harmful at all (some sources even recommend taking 3-5 grams at every meal). And to help heal the gut, 2-5 grams a day of glutamine is usually recommended.
If you end up purchasing a collagen supplement, check out the listed amino acid content on the packaging. It will tell you how much of each amino acid you will get from each serving. You can use this to help you figure out the minimum dose you’d like to take every day.
I’m not sure what supplements are available in the UK, but if you can find collagen peptides, hydrolyzed collagen, or collagen hydrosylate, I recommend purchasing that.
Another good source of glycine, proline, and glutamine (the amino acids that I talk about in this article) is animal skin. Chicken skin, for example, is an especially tasty way to get more of those amino acids in.
Does that all make sense? If you have any questions, please let me know.
good advice. I take a tablespoon of collagen hydrosylate in my coffee every day. within a month of starting my skin, hair and nails improved remarkably. but be careful to get the kind of collagen noted. A friend didnt pay attention and just purchased one of those protein jars that are sold. she complains regularly that the stuff doesnt mix properly and i keep repeating that she didnt get collagen hydrosylate with is like an instant powder with no after taste and doesnt change the physical characteristics of the drink. someday I may hit her! LOL what i do not understand is the recommendation to go off the stuff for 30 days every 6 months. I cant find any info on this.
Hey Karen,
Thanks for the tips!
There is no need to go off of collagen hydrosylate every six months. You can keep it in your diet as long as you’d like.
Hola. I have just one question about bone broth. How do you use it? that is, do you pour it all into a jar and then use the whole jar for your soup? that sounds more like stock. and honestly, the broth wouldnt go far. I’d have to be making some everyday. I am wondering if i would just use some and dilute it with water for a bone broth drink or add it to soup in ice cube sizes. No one ever says!
Hey Karen,
You’ll be getting most of the benefits of bone broth just from taking your collagen supplement, so you don’t have to worry about getting the right dose of bone broth for health purposes.
However, to answer your question, how you use bone broth and how much you use of it really depends on your goals and the nutrient content of the broth. This is probably why you are struggling to find specific recommendations.
That being said, I’d suggest making a bone broth that is thick, dense, and so gelatinous that it solidifies when you let it cool. This will serve as something like a stock concentrate that you can dilute with water and drink as a hot beverage or add to soup. Add whatever amount gives you the flavor you’re looking for.
Does this make sense? If you have any other questions, please let me know.
exactly the info I needed. thank you
I’ve been enjoying the culinary benefits of “bone broth” (I’ve always known it as simple stock) for decades thanks to my grandmother. She would set bones, often pre-roasted, to boil in a huge stockpot on the backburner, where they’d simmer for days. She would add bits and bobs and vegetable peelings as she prepared meals, and the strained stock was sheer nectar. I continue to enjoy its benefits as a soup and gravy base and by its delicious self.
My question is this. On a ketogenic diet for weight loss, do I need to count the protein and carb value of my bone broth, which is considerable at ~5 to 11 g/cup protein and 0.8-3g net carbs, into my macros for the day?
I would love to feel free to sip my luscious broth whenever I feel peckish but those macros have given me pause. Thank you.
Hey Weez,
That sounds incredibly delicious!
Yes, treat the bone broth as you would any other food you eat on keto when it comes to tracking macros.
Thanks muchly Tyler♨️
No problem! 🙂
If you need help with anything else, let me know
“all of the meat protein that you eat on the ketogenic diet can feed cancer and heart disease”
Yeah… right.
First of all, protein on keto is actually fairly low. And no, I don’t believe meat causes heart disease. What a load of garbage.
Hey Katie,
I believe that meat does not cause heart disease as well. I didn’t realize at the time that what I wrote could be interpreted in that way.
Hopefully, if I add a bit more context to this statement, it’ll be easier to understand where I’m coming from.
After reading through some of the research studies on the topic (which are provided below the article), I noticed that the amino acids found in high amounts in meat protein can stimulate some of the mechanisms behind cancer growth and heart disease. By consuming more of predominant amino acids found in bone broth (from collagen protein), it may be possible to counteract any negative effects that can be caused by these mechanisms.
Thanks for your feedback! If you have any further questions or concerns, please let me know.
I really appreciated the article and the thorough exam of the functions of the different amino acids and their sources. Thank you for this highly informative and helpful work!
I was also surprised by that. By definition, a keto diet is moderate-to-low amounts of protein. Even if a high-protein diet were unhealthy, it still would have absolutely nothing to do with a keto diet.
But that is on top of the fact that there is no clear evidence even that a high-protein diet is unhealthy. All of the countries that have the highest meat consumption in the world also have the longest lifespan in the world.
Thanks for pointing this out, Katie and Marmalade.
We just updated the article to better communicate the points we were trying to make during this section.
About the criticisms of a high-protein diet, have you ever looked at all of the evidence on the other side of the debate? This is far from settled science and the debate has barely begun, partly because researchers are in the middle of a replication crisis. Some of this involves confounders like the healthy user effect.
In fact, besides a lot of speculation, the anti-meat position seems to have its origins in religion, specifically the Seventh Day Adventists funding so much nutrition studies. There are cultural biases that go back to Medieval Christianity that appear to have been adapted to modern dietary ideology.
The greatest challenge to anti-meat advocates is that the countries with the longest lived populations in the world also happen to be those with the highest meat intake. These mostly exist in Asia and, indeed, Asian research has shown meat consumption correlates to better health outcomes.
But Western dietary authorities have mostly ignored these inconvenient facts. That is why the debate has barely begun.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley…
“In this regard, it must be pointed out that GH and IGF‐1 can also have pro‐aging effects and that most gerontologists therefore favor reducing rather than increasing the levels of these factors (Longo et al., 2015). However, most past studies of aging and GH/IGF‐1 are confounded by the use of mutations that affect the developmental programming of aging, which is not necessarily relevant to nonmutant adults. For example, such mutations in mice alter the normal innervation of the hypothalamus during brain development and prevent the hypothalamic inflammation in the adult (Sadagurski et al., 2015). Hypothalamic inflammation may program adult body‐wide aging in nonmutants (Zhang et al., 2017), but it seems unlikely that lowering IGF‐1 in normal non‐mutant adults can provide the same protection. A second problem with past studies is a general failure to uncouple GH/IGF‐1 signaling from lifelong changes in insulin signaling. Human longevity seems more consistently linked to insulin sensitivity than to IGF‐1 levels, and the effects of IGF‐1 on human longevity are confounded by its inverse proportionality to insulin sensitivity (Vitale, Pellegrino, Vollery, & Hofland, 2019). We therefore believe our approach of increasing GH/IGF‐1 for a limited time in the more natural context of elevated DHEA while maximizing insulin sensitivity is justified, particularly in view of the positive role of GH and IGF‐1 in immune maintenance, the role of immune maintenance in the retardation of aging (Fabris et al., 1988), and our present results.”
https://benjamindavidsteele…
“I have suspicions about the point of confusion that originated this disagreement. Fear of promoting too much growth through protein is basically the old Galenic argument based on humoral physiology. The belief is that too much meat as a stimulating/nurturing substance built up the ‘blood’ with too much heat and dryness which would burn up the body and cause a shortened lifespan. This culturally inherited bias about meat has since been fancied up with scientific language. But ancient philosophy is not the best source for formulating modern scientific theory. Let me bring this back to insulin sensitivity and insulin resistance that appears to play the determining role. Insulin is a hormone and so we must understand this from an endicrinological approach, quite different than Galenic-style fears about meat that was filtered through the Christian theology of the Middle Ages.
“Hormones are part of a complex hormonal system going far beyond macronutrients in the diet, although it does appear that the macronutrient profile is a major factor. Harry Serpano, in a discussion with Bart Kay, said that: “In a low insulin state, when you’re heavy meat and fat and your insulin is at 1.3, as Dr. Paul Mangan has actually shown in one of his videos, it’s quite clear; and in what I’m showing in one of the studies, it’s quite clear. It’s so close to basically fasting which is 0.8 — it’s very low. You’re not going to be pushing up these growth pathways like mTOR or IGF-1 in any significant way.” Like with so much else, there is strong evidence that what we need to be worrying about is insulin, specifically on a high-carb diet that causes insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. That is what is guaranteed to severely decrease longevity.”
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“A major argument in Gundry’s book is that too much protein leads to elevated IGF-1. That has to do with the concern that it is unhealthy for the body to be permanently in growth mode. This partly misses the point that many people on animal-based diets tend toward fasting, ketosis, and autophagy, sometimes caloric restriction as well. This happens because, as starchy and sugary plant foods are eliminated, hunger and cravings lessen. It becomes easier for people to eat less or go for long periods without food, sometimes without intentionally trying to do so.
“So, contrary to Gundry’s fear, one would actually expect a carnivore diet to be low in IGF-1. That is exactly what Saladino has found, in himself and in his patients. That goes against a key argument in The Longevity Paradox. The fact of the matter is that a plant-based diet is more likely to drive up IGF-1. “So most of the carnivores I test for IGF-1 are around 120,” said Saladino, “which is significantly lower than people on mixed diets who are not even carnivores. So I think this brings back the idea of context. And the context that I’m talking about here is that IGF-1 can be triggered by a lot of things. But I think that the response of the body to protein is very different when we are in ketosis, than it is on a mixed diet. And we see this with insulin as well.”
“Also, they got onto the topic of TMAO. Saladino points out that fish has more fully formed TMAO than red meat produces in combination with grain-loving Prevotella. Even vegetables produce TMAO. So, why is beef being scapegoated? It’s pure ignorant idiocy. To further this point, Saladino explained that he has tested the microbiome of patients of his on the carnivore diet and it comes up low on the Prevotella bacteria. He doesn’t think TMAO is the danger people claim it is. But even if it were, the single safest diet might be the carnivore diet.
“Gundry didn’t even disagree. He pointed out that he did testing on patients of his who are long-term vegans and now in their 70s. They had extremely high levels of TMAO. He sent their lab results to the Cleveland Clinic for an opinion. The experts there refused to believe that it was possible and so dismissed the evidence. That is the power of dietary ideology when it forms a self-enclosed reality tunnel. Red meat is bad and vegetables are good. The story changes over time. It’s the saturated fat. No, it’s the TMAO. Then it will be something else. Always looking for a rationalization to uphold the preferred dogma.
“Related points are made about advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Gundry asked if Saladino was worried about these. He did say they were a concern, but not for carnivores more than for anyone else on other diets. Everything we cook is going to have AGEs, but we can we lessen them by how we cook (e.g., avoid cooking with olive oil). This problem is far from being limited to cooking meat. And no matter what one is eating, there are ways of avoiding AGEs, such as using a pressure cooker.”
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“Anyway, it’s not hard to find examples outside of the Blue Zones that are plant-based while extremely unhealthy (e.g., India) or meat-based while extremely healthy (e.g., Masai). “Hong Kong has the world’s highest meat consumption, and the highest life expectancy. The people of India eat little meat, and have a high rate of cardiovascular disease” (P. D. Mangan, Meat, Saturated Fat, and Long Life). Consider how impressive it is that Hong Kong residents reach an average lifespan of 85 years on a diet with an average amount of a pound and a half of meat per day, as Dr. Paul Saladino explains it (video & transcript). Also, Hong Kong has the highest average IQ. Meat doesn’t seem to be harming them, as is found in many Asian populations (the problem is that, in Eastern and Western epidemiological studies, the healthy user effect creates confounders that aren’t controlled for; with Asians associating meat with health and Westerners associating meat with disease). Similarly, the French have much more saturated fat in their diet and yet are healthier. This is called the French Paradox.
“But there are so many of these so-called ‘paradoxes’ that they seem more like the rule than the exception (Hong Kong Paradox, Swiss or Alpine Paradox, Albanian Paradox, Cuban Paradox, Spanish Paradox, Greek Paradox, Italian Paradox, and more generally the Mediterranean Paradox; Eskimo Paradox, Masai Paradox, South Pacific Paradox, and on and on; or the related Scottish Paradox, similar to the Northern Ireland Paradox and Belfast Paradox, maybe involving vitamin D, a fat-soluble vitamin found in animal fat; also consider the Israeli Paradox and Indian Paradox where there is bad cardiovascular health outcomes despite little saturated fat). Conventional nutritional studies is sinking under a wave of paradoxes.
“These counter-examples are simply ignored in the Blue Zones literature, also reminiscent of Ancel Keys’ and his cherry-picking data. The non-paradox paradox is demonstrated simply by looking at the same countries across time. As American health worsened over the past century when saturated fats were replaced with industrial seed oils (observable in the data, though ignored, when Keys began his research), a similar pattern has been found with Okinawans and meat: “Longevity in Japan: Meat up, lifespan up. Except in Okinawa: Meat down, lifespan down” (Tucker Goodrich tweeting about Floyd H. Chilton et al, Precision Nutrition and Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids).”
Thank you for taking the time to research all of this and provide such helpful feedback. Upon re-reading the article, I realized that my semantics didn’t align with the point I was trying to make.
Our intention was to communicate the mechanisms that can contribute to cancerous growth and disease, not to advocate against eating meat or consuming higher amounts of protein. However, my writing was too ambiguous to get that across clearly.
We just updated the article to better reflect our interpretation of the literature.
Thanks again for pointing this out. We greatly appreciate the time you took to provide us with this feedback.