Bone broth

Bone broth is water that has spent a day pulling the collagen out of bones and joints. Done properly it sets like jelly when cold, and that jelly — gelatin — is what it has to offer: glycine and proline in a warm, salty, digestible form, which is exactly what a diet heavy in muscle meat is missing.

It is not a mineral supplement, whatever the labels say. The calcium and magnesium in a cup of broth are small. The gelatin is the point, and the 50 Man Foods use a mug of it alongside dinner rather than as a meal.

  • With dinner, most days
  • 1 recipe
  • Connective tissue
  • Updated Sep 2026

What it supplies

Nutrient · per 250 ml cup, homemade Amount % DV Relative amount
Protein (gelatin) 6–10 g 16%
Glycine 2–3 g 0%
Proline ~1.5 g 0%
Calcium ~10–20 mg 1%
Magnesium ~5–10 mg 2%
Sodium as salted 0%

Source: Hsu DJ et al., Food and Nutrition Research, 2017.Percent Daily Values are based on adult reference intakes. The bars stop at 100%; the numbers do not.

Why it works

Glycine is the amino acid that balances the methionine in steak, chicken and eggs; it makes glutathione and bile, calms the brainstem at night and feeds the gut lining. Traditional cooking supplied it through broth and slow-cooked cuts, and modern eating — boneless, skinless, lean — removed it. Broth puts it back at every meal.

Warm, salty and gelatinous, it is also the easiest thing to digest when the gut is unhappy, which is why it sits in the digestion cluster and why it is what people are given when they cannot keep anything else down.

How much, how often

  • 1 mug

    With dinner, most days

    About 2–3 g glycine, the counterweight to a day of muscle meat.

  • 18–24 hours

    Bare simmer, joints and feet

    It should set firm in the fridge; if it pours, it is stock.

How to buy and prepare it

Make it. Buy knuckle, joint and neck bones, feet and a marrow bone or two from grass-fed beef, or a whole chicken carcass with the feet. If buying broth, it should be refrigerated or frozen, set to jelly when cold, and list bones, water, salt and vegetables; shelf-stable cartons that pour like water are stock, not broth.

Collagen peptides in the cupboard cover the glycine on the days you do not make it.

Roast the bones for 30 minutes to brown them, then cover with cold water in a large pot with a splash of vinegar, bring to a bare simmer and hold it there for 18–24 hours, skimming the first hour. Add onion, carrot and bay in the last two hours. Strain, salt, cool quickly and refrigerate; lift off the fat cap and keep it for cooking. The broth beneath should set firm. A mug with dinner, or rice cooked in it.

Five days refrigerated, six months frozen. Freeze in cup portions or ice-cube trays for cooking rice. Reheat only what you will drink.

Recipes that use it

In these guides

Questions

Is bone broth high in minerals?
No. Measured calcium and magnesium in homemade broth are a few percent of the daily value per cup. Drink it for the gelatin and the glycine, not the minerals.
How much broth a day?
A mug with a meal, most days, supplies 2–3 g glycine. Two mugs balances a heavy meat day. There is no reason to drink litres of it.
Does it need to set to be good?
If it stays liquid when cold it has little gelatin and is stock rather than broth. Use more joints and feet, less water, and a longer simmer.