Benefits of Cooking with Grass Fed Beef Bones
If you haven’t heard about the benefits of cooking with bones then it’s time you found out! If you have inflammation in your body, or you just want all round wellness from being proactive about your health, then slow cooking with bones and certain cuts is a great choice for you to make… and it’s hearty and delicious!
It’s not just bones that are great to cook with, but the collagen rich cuts, like chuck steak and osso bucco. You can see the pale collagen seams running through the cut of osso bucco in the picture above. You know the ones – it’s the reason you don’t put osso bucco on the BBQ plate – but slow cook it – and when you do, magic happens. When this collagen in the beef is cooked slowly, it melts to gelatine.
This gelatine is wonderful for its anti-stress, anti-inflammatory, supportive healing and digestive properties. It also helps to heal the gastrointestinal tract, helps repair cartilage, adds wonderful flavour and results in beef that falls off the bone and melts in your mouth. You will also get gelatine from the connective tissue around any bones, so in cuts like blade steak or short ribs.
Eat a balance of cuts
The cuts that contain this fantastic gelatine are really important because they balance out the muscle meats, which have a different amino acid profile. The muscle meat cuts contain the amino acids tryptophan, cysteine & histidine, which are associated with inflammation, aging and an inhibition of thyroid function which impacts metabolism negatively.
Gelatine however, contains no tryptophan and only small amounts of cysteine and histidine. Not only that, but gelatine contains the amino acids glycine, alanine and proline, which have really positive benefits for the body and balance out the less desirable amino acids mentioned from the muscle meat cuts.
These amino acids from the collagen are reported to aid in tumour inhibition, wound healing, sleep and anti-stress as well as aiding in the prevention of inflammation, free radical damage and diabetes, among other things. They’re great for the tummy, for the joints and for a calm mind!
As reported by Ray Peat (nutritional consultant and Ph.D. in biology), “The amino acids in proteins have been defined as “essential” on the basis of their contribution to growth, ignoring their role in producing long life, good brain development, and good health.
“Most studies of the nutritional requirements for protein have been done for the agricultural industries, and so have been designed to find the cheapest way to get the maximum growth in the shortest time. The industry isn’t interested in the longevity, intelligence, or happiness of their pigs, chickens, and lambs.”
We are no different to animals – eating the full spectrum of beef cuts, including those with bones and collagen, will contribute to well-being, longevity and happy, healthy minds – the things that we value highly in life, rather than just providing energy for our bodies.
Other ways to include gelatine into meals
Another way to include gelatine into your eating is to incorporate home made stock into a meal with the muscle meat cuts. So, making a lovely homemade gravy or sauce, with stock made from bones will help to balance out the amino acid profile of your meal. If you haven’t made stock or broth before it’s really very easy and you can learn from our recipe. I sometimes even heat it up and have it with a generous pinch of sea salt on a winter afternoon.
Protein Rich
Another great property of gelatine is that it is nearly pure protein – at around 90% protein. One can achieve a higher protein diet by consuming gelatine, without having to consume significantly larger amounts of food or energy.
What do we mean by bones and collagen rich cuts?
Bones are literally that, bones from the animal – rib bones, shin bones, vertebrae and hip bones, etc. There are also bones in some of the meat cuts – like short ribs, osso bucco or blade steak. Bone broths can be made from slow cooking with the bones and they can also be added to a casserole made with other cuts like round steak, to add extra goodness and flavour.
Collagen rich cuts have the collagen seems running through them, like I described earlier with the osso bucco image. Chuck steak is collagen rich cut and is really wonderful for slow cooking casseroles, which releases the gelatine from within the cut.
You’ll know that there’s gelatine in the meal when the leftovers set firm in the fridge – like a jelly.
Choose quality bones
If you are choosing to cook with bones, it’s really important to choose quality, chemical free bones. Toxins that enter the animal’s body are stored away in bone and fat – where they are ‘safer’ for the animals – away from blood circulation and the brain. Slow cooking with bones releases the wonderful gelatine, but can also release unwanted toxins, especially if you are slowly simmering a bone broth for 12 hours or more. This means while you are nourishing your own body with all of those wonderful properties of the collagen and minerals like calcium, you might also be receiving heavy metals and chemical concentrates unless you choose carefully.
You can rest assured that our grassfed beef is chemical free – so you can safely cook with the bones that we supply, knowing that you are only receiving goodness!
A variety of cuts means a variety of yummy meals!
Eating the full spectrum of beef cuts will help you to find the right balance of amino acids and as an added bonus; you will also enjoy a greater variety of meals! Each cut is as good as the next, as long as it is cooked right. While I do love a juicy and tender steak, there is truly nothing better than a slow cooked hearty beef and red wine casserole, with a creamy potato mash and sprinkled with freshly chopped Italian parsley. Or, what about a beautiful Thai or Indian curry with a dollop of yoghurt and fresh chopped coriander on top?
Our Grandparents used to eat the majority of the animal – there was not the luxury of choosing just the most tender of muscle meat steaks each and every night. In fact, the most affordable cuts of beef to purchase have always been the best for us. Without even realising it, a more nourishing and well balanced diet was the result.
Choose bones in your hamper
If you would like to add bones when you order one of our grass fed beef hampers at our website, just add this in the comments box. If speaking with Derek, then just mention it with your order. Our grass fed beef bones are $5/kg and are available in multiples of 2kg packs.
A Holistic Approach
You may have heard red meat get a bad rap health wise. For someone eating only preservative containing highly processed meats or only muscle meat cuts, from grain fed, chemical heavy production systems, this may be the case.
If our chemical free beef of all cuts, fed and finished on diverse pastures, preservative free and produced the way nature intended was considered separately in such studies, I’m quite sure there would be a very different recommendation outcome.
Keep in mind that you can do all the great cooking of bone broths and collagen rich cuts, but good health comes from a holistic approach. Be conscious of the other things you are choosing in your diet and life, and go forth well nourished!
Yours in conscious eating, Kirrily
