Natural Products Expo West 2017: Bone Broths

As I posted a few days ago, the 2017 Natural Products Expo West contained more exhibitors devoted to sustainable, nutrient dense pastured meats than ever before. The biggest meat product clearly with more booths was bone broth.

Bone broth has been around for thousands of years. But until recently, just about any broth you’d find in the supermarket was cooked quickly at a high temperature. This process made the broths lacking in the rich gelatin and nutrients that give broth its healing powers. True bone broth needs to be simmered for at least a day.

Then in the fall of 2014, the Weston A. Price Foundation’s Sally Fallon Morell and Kaayla Daniel released the book Nourishing Broth: An Old-Fashioned Remedy for the Modern World. Several months later, the New York Times published an article about the growing popularity of bone broth and its health benefits.

For those who were already aware of real broth, the only way to get it was to make it yourself. But now there are broth makers continually popping up in the market. Below are the broth exhibitors at the Expo West that are cooking up the real deal. All broths that I list hear use pastured animals and organic ingredients.

Broth Starter Kit

This was a concept I had never even thought of before attending the Expo, but loved the idea immediately upon learning about it. There was only one exhibitor that is doing this, but I hope to see more.

Numo Broth

Numo Broth was founded by Faye Luong and Victoria Leung, two acupuncturists from San Jose. They have the innovative concept of a brew-it-yourself kit with partially cooked marrowy bones and herbs and vegetables to make your own broth. It’s always best to make any type of food yourself, but bone broth is a long process. Numo Broth allows you to essentially make it yourself, but with a little assistance. I was blown away when I heard about this.

Freezer Stable Broths

Along with Numo Broth’s do-it yourself kit, there were a number of exhibitors I recommend that make freezer stable broths with bones from sustainable farms. Some I was familiar with while others I discovered for the first time.

Bonafide Provisions

I first learned about Bonafide Provisions at the 2012 Wise Traditions Conference when they were called Real Bone Broth. At the time, they were the only ones I knew of making a nutrient dense broth and they were available mainly online.  Several years later they’re making their way through supermarkets and are expanding their line.

Bonafide now offers juices, which are bone broth mixed with drinkable veggies. When it comes juicing, nothing can please an appropriate omnivore more than a little broth added into it.

Brothee

A little over a year ago, a company called Brothee began selling its product at my local farmers market. It’s great to see a local broth maker succeeding. Brothee uses a generous amount marrow in its broths to make it both rich and nutritious. They make a variety of tasty flavors, including beef, chicken, turkey… and even an amazing veggie broth. Yes, I said it.

Bare Bones

Bare Bones is another broth maker throwing the heat. They use GAP (Global Animal Partneship certified animals raised on open pastures for all of their products.

Fridge Stable Broths

Freezer stable broths are more common as they have longer lasting power, but fridge stable ones do have the advantage if you need to make something with a broth last minute.

Epic

Epic, which is well known for its beef bars, has now ventured into several other food items all promoting sustainable pastured meats. The broth world is one of territories they’ve entered into. And they’ve introduced some bold flavors, such beef jalapeno sea salt and turkey jalapeno.

Pressery

Pressery is another company which began as something else and joined the bone brewing universe. Originally a juicing company, they’ve now got vinegars and broths. They’re another one going for some unique flavors, including beef orange rosemary and chicken apple kale. As the Pressery was started as juicers, their broth can be drank as a cold juice. Or you can heat them up and have your more traditional broth.

Shelf Stable Broths

While normally shelf stable broths lack the nutrient density due to being cooked at high temperatures, there’s one broth maker that’s able to capture real broth inside a box.

Kettle & Fire

Kettle & Fire uses a vacuum packaging process to store its bone broth while it’s still hot after cooking for about 24 hours. Like all of the others on the list, they get their bones from pastured animals and mix them with organic vegetables to make their broth.

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