When I eliminated all of the glutamates from my food storage, I realized that I had absolutely no way to make a simple stew or soup… because ALL of the broth options disappeared!

I had several.  I had organic beef broth in a box from the local health food store.  Sorry… glutamates.  It’s gone.

I had several buillion pastes in small jars.  They didn’t pass the glutamate test either.

I also had standard bullion cubes and freeze dried flakes.  They all had MSG or another glutamate added.

I went searching far and wide.  I even looked in California at Trader Joe’s while I was there over Thanksgiving.  They had no broth or bullion that was MSG and glutamate free.

The same was true at Wild Oats (with one exception of a vegetable broth in a box).  I couldn’t find any prepared chicken or beef bullion products that were free of added glutamates.

This was important to me for a couple of reasons:

1) It’s winter time and I enjoy stews and soups.

2) My boys both have the after-effects of a cold.  One symptom that is remaining is related to milk and milk product consumption.  To get proper nutrition without milk really required a good broth.

My studies of the various broth products available also left me with the distinct impression that true broth simply no longer exists.  None of the beef broth products mentioned soup bones.  That’s how you make beef broth!

The means that none of these products had the massive amounts of bone leached calcium and other minerals you get from bones and bone marrow.

So… I decided to make some of my own.  Here’s the recipe if you are interested:

4 pounds of beef soup bones
2 pounds of beef scraps
2.5 quarts of water
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 bay leaf
1 onion
2 cloves
10 peppercorns
5 stalks celery
1 sprig of parsley

Throw it all in a crockpot (chop up anything bigger than an inch other than the bones).  Let it cook covered overnight.

Strain into another container (using one of those metal screen strainers).

Refrigerate until cold.

Scoop off the solid fat on top and discard.

The rest is beef broth.

You can can it with a pressure canner for 45 minutes or so if you want to keep some around for longer than a week in the fridge.

-James D. Brausch