The Far Reaching Medicinal Effects of Bone Broth with Dr. Kellyann Petrucci

Bone broth has many medicinal properties and is something I frequently recommend to my patients.  Today we speak with Dr. Kellyann Petrucci on how to best use this powerful healing tool.

In This Episode

The Future of Functional Medicine Review … 00:00:42
Episode Intro … 00:01:53
What is Bone Broth? … 00:09:53
Benefits … 00:16:12
Modifications … 00:19:23
Do You Cook the Meat with the Broth? … 00:23:55
The Best Way to Start Fasting … 00:24:51
How to Make Bone Broth … 00:28:02
What Bones are Better for the Broth? … 00:30:05
Episode Wrap Up … 00:32.52

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Dr. Michael Ruscio: Hey, guys. I just wanted to make one quick announcement before we start the show. If you are a healthcare practitioner, I’m very excited to announce that we just released The Future of Functional Medicine Review. This is a monthly practitioner training tool that will allow you to sharpen your clinical skills and enhance your ability to practice cost-effective functional medicine.

You’ve probably heard me say, like, a thousand times that we need to make functional medicine more cost effective to be able to get better patient outcomes with less time and less money so that we can reach and help more people. Well, this Monthly Review will be a big step in that direction.

It will consist of four sections: a case study, research study reviews, the practitioner question of the month, and the practice tip. And all of this will be very helpful in making you a better clinician and steering you toward practicing a more efficacious and cost-effective functional medicine model. If you head over to DrRuscio.com/Review, you can see a full sample issue and learn more.

Again, I’m very excited about this, and I think you will find it hopefully very helpful. Okay, back to the show.

Episode Intro

DrMR: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Dr. Ruscio Radio. Today, we are going to be talking about bone broth with Dr. Kellyann Petrucci. Super excited to have her here. Hi, welcome to the show.

Dr. Kellyann Petrucci: Hi, Michael. I’m so glad to be here.

DrMR: Glad to have you here. Talking about bone broth is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. We’ve been trying to coordinate schedules for a little while. But with two busy people, it’s not always that easy.

DrKP: It really isn’t. And has nothing to do with intention because I’ve been dying to connect with you and all your listeners. But it gets crazy, especially around holidays and things. It just gets crazy.

Dr. Ruscio: Absolutely. Absolutely. But we’re here today. So I’m looking forward to having a good conversation about bone broth.

Before we go into that, though, tell people a little bit about your training and how you found your way into doing more with bone broth.

DrKP: Sure. So I’m a board certified naturopathic doctor and certified in nutrition and have been doing it for about 24 years now. And I love what I do. And I did, I guess, fall backwards into it like so many of us do.

And that was when I was young I had a condition called endometriosis. And basically, this meant that I was in a lot of pain every month with menstrual cramps. And my mother didn’t know what to do.

And we went from doctor to doctor. It got crazy because I was missing school. And it really impacted my life in a great way because I was missing a lot of school, missing social things. And it really got to a point where we had to make some decisions as to what to do about this.

So when we finally went to the last doctor, they said, “Look. This is what we need to do—these medications, this surgery.” And I thought to myself, “Mmm.” Sometimes, you just have to listen to your instincts. And something takes over. And that’s what happened to me. And I knew there had to be a better way.

And that wasn’t the worst part though. The worst part was they said, “Not only do you need these medications, and we recommend them, and not only do we recommend this surgery, you also are very likely not to have children.”

And so when you’re told this as a young woman and especially coming from the big Italian family that I have, this is what we talk about. We talk about kids and traditions. And to be told something like that when that’s all you’ve ever really wanted, when that’s been the most important thing to you, it affects you in a great way.

And I tap into when I see my patients. Whenever I sit down with a patient and they’re telling me their stories, I really tap into what it was like in that moment to feel like, “My gosh! I feel aimless. I don’t know what to do.”

Dr. Ruscio: Right.

DrKP: “Here’s something that I want more than anything.” And for those listening, it may be to lose weight or that you’re aging more quickly than you’d like. It may be that you have achy joints or you have an autoimmune issue or you have a blood sugar handling problem. And the list goes on and on. And you’ve tried everything. And you really don’t know what to do. I know what that feels like.

But what I did was I found out through my own research, and through happenstance, I ended up doing a body building contest—and this is funny—doing a body building contest. And I was put on a paleo-like diet—a paleo-like diet to train for this contest. It was body building/fitness type of contest when I was in college.

Dr. Ruscio: Sure.

DrKP: And funny enough, when I went off these foods, a lot of these foods that I found out were inflammatory foods, I completely reversed the endometriosis. No drugs. No medications of any kind. Nothing. I completely healed this condition.

And it happened—and this is what was crazy, Michael—it happened in about 30 days, in about a month. That was my big Aha! moment. And the reason why I bring that up is because that’s why I’m here today, in that moment.

And I’m so glad that I found this out. And I found the power of food because now I have two beautiful boys. And here I was as a young woman, told that, “You know what?” doctor after doctor, “You probably can’t have kids.” So if you’re out there and you’re feeling like you don’t have the answer, you don’t know what to do, I’m telling you there are answers.

And what’s so crazy is so often we find them in food. And the reason why I’m talking about bone broth and the reason why I spend all of my time—and I studied in Europe, by the way. I trained in Swiss medicine and European biological nutrition and medicine. And I was privy during this time to a lot of very advanced and amazing therapies and protocols.

And I have to tell you, you might wonder, with all this exposure and all these years of practice, why just bone broth? Because, as a clinician—and you know this—when you use something that’s so powerful on so many levels, it gets your attention.

And what was so crazy is I was using this bone broth, not only on myself. I hit a wall at 40, when I turned 40. And I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted. I had cleared myself of a lot of the inflammation.

So a lot of the things that you may be feeling, that are listening, if you have all of these conditions that we just mentioned. Or you may feel like, “You know what? I have stubborn weight loss. I can’t get the weight off.” Or if you feel like, “I’m aging more quickly than I’d like to. Or I just am not feeling well,” or you have a condition, I have to tell you. In using bone broth as part of my therapeutic measures, as part of my secret weapon in what I do, I found it worked on men, women, older, younger. It was incredible.

The skin changes—it was just insane what we were seeing with skin changes. And by the way, my book Dr. Kellyann’s Bone Broth Diet, it says right on the cover—it’s with Rodale Publishing. And it says right on the cover that you’re going to lose up to 20 pounds in a certain amount of time. And you can’t just say that.

So in 21 days, we measured all of this out. We tested all this out in three cities. And we couldn’t believe the skin changes. We couldn’t believe the weight changes. We couldn’t believe the conditions that were being healed by people with all kinds of diabetes and blood sugar problems and all of these things, reducing insulin, going off insulin. And I could just go on and on.

A patient with shingles did everything she could for shingles. She couldn’t heal shingles. And the lesson that I learned through all of this and the lesson that I learned through all of my years of practice was simply this. When you do these three things, you get results.

And that is when you reduce chronic, ongoing inflammation in the body, when you heal the gut, and when you train the body to become a natural fat burner—when you do these three things, that’s when you’re free. That’s when you get what you want. That’s when you lose the weight. You lose the wrinkles. You feel better. You’re more energized. When you get your body to that state is when the magic happens. And that’s why I’m here today.

Dr. Ruscio: I think that’s very well said. And absolutely, I think everyone listening or reading this has a renewed attention for how important nutritional medicine can be and how the foundation of anything in this alternative/integrative/functional medicine space—whatever you want to call it—the foundation is really diet. And we have to really nail that part first. And this is definitely a big component of diet.

What is Bone Broth?

And I’m sure most of the people listening or reading this have heard of broth or bone broth. But tell us a little bit more about exactly what it is because—

DrKP: Sure.

Dr. Ruscio: Sometimes, people ask, “Can you make it with fish or with beef? Or do you have to use the bones?” So tell us a little bit more about what bone broth really is.

DrKP: Right. So you can use anything. You can use chicken, beef, turkey, fish. All you do is take the bones and you put them in either a stock pot, a slow cooker (which is my favorite way), or a pressure cooker (which is a very quick way of cooking food). You can either do the stock pot, the slow cooker, or the pressure cooker.

You put the bones in with water. And I always put celery, onion, and carrot in there just for flavor. You put that in there, any spices or anything else that you want to get it to taste good. And it’s so easy. My favorite is lemongrass.

You just simmer that for a long period of time, a little longer for larger bones. So chicken would be a little less than beef. Fish is less than chicken, depending on how thick the bones are. But you just simmer the bones over an extended period of time.

And all of the goodness from the bones comes out. If you’re using marrow bones, in marrow, it’s so blood building. It really builds the blood. There’s collagen in there. It helps your body mainline its own collagen. And collagen is the glue that holds your body together, what keeps your skin so luscious and beautiful.

The amino acids that are so upbuilding in your body. We need these amino acids. The healthy proteins, minerals—these minerals really help you sleep. And they help balance out your body. There are so many good things—healthy fats. There are so many advantages.

And if you think about this, Michael, really it’s like grand-mom’s soup, grand-mom’s chicken soup that was the answer to all.

Dr. Ruscio: Exactly, yeah.

DrKP: And this is historical. I did want to make this clear. I didn’t invent this. I have so many people say, “Oh yeah. You’re the one that invented the bone broth.” I didn’t.

This has been around since the hunter/gatherer days. They would literally take rocks. They would heat them over a fire. And they would put these rocks in the intestines of animals and use that a pot. And they would make broths with the intestines. It’s crazy how far it goes back.

So it was used in hospitals over time to really nourish and help heal. And so Florence Nightingale—you can read and read and read. The cauldron over the fire. So it’s been used forever.

And it’s so sustainable because you can use all parts of the animal. And not only that, you’re getting so much nutrition. It’s so upbuilding and does so many things to help make you feel good, to help keep you solid and healthy, and to make you look good.

It’s such a win-win that if you don’t have broth on your table, it’s such a good idea. And it’s good for your hair, your skin, your nails, your teeth. After you have a child, one of the best things that you can do postpartum is these fish broths with all these minerals in them to really rejuvenate you and bring you back to life and get you feeling really healthy again. There are so many uses for this broth, and it warms you down to your toes.

And what’s great is the whole principle behind the Bone Broth Diet and using bone broth as a diet measure is to use the broth as a fasting mechanism. So you can actually fast with broth. We call mini-fasting. And you sip on the broth.

And you really burn a lot of that stored fat. So we’re talking about that dangerous belly fat that so many people have. All those estrogens in that fat which are pre-cancerous and we really have to watch that. And we know that’s the fat that your heart pulls from to start all those heart diseases and all those problems that we have.

So all that stored fat under the chin, the arms, the gut, the butt—all of these places that women struggle with—they really struggle, and men as well. The mini-fasting helps you so much go through and burn that stored fat. And it’s one of the reasons why the book became such a massive success, hitting The New York Time’s list and so forth because it really does get results.

And again, as a clinician, when you see something that works on so many levels, it’s just astounding how it gets your attention. And again, all age groups and for all different things. “Doctor, I have achy joints.” Guess what? Bone broth—natural glucosamine chondroitin in the bones that comes out in the broth.

“You know what? I can’t sleep at night.” Guess what? The lysine in the broth will help soothe you, give you the minerals you need to help you sleep. And it’s an unbelievable anti-oxidant. We’re always talking about these detoxes, these detoxes, these detoxes. Well, guess what the best detoxing food I’ve ever used is?

You don’t get those cravings and crashes and all those problems that so many people have had when they’ve tried to do anything restrictive at all. You don’t have that with the broth or with bone broth mini-fasting. You’re very satisfied.

And all of these conditions that people come in—autoimmune diseases. And we’re seeing those on the rise so much. Thyroid issues and Crohn’s and colitis and all of that. And what I say is, “Let’s heal the gut. Let’s heal the gut like nobody’s business.” And nothing that I’ve seen can do that better than bone broth.

And the reason why is if you think about your skin: if you get a sunburn and you put aloe vera on it, it goes in and soothes and it heals that burn. It not only helps you recover from the burn, but it also soothes it. Well imagine bone broth—the gelatin in bone broth which is cooked collagen goes into your intestines and it does very much the same thing. It goes in there and soothes it, heals your intestines, helps you build up a strong immunity because most of our immune system is there.

So it really does so many things on so many levels that it’s just really something to pay attention to.

Benefits

Dr. Ruscio: Completely agreed. And I think one of the reasons why it can be so helpful is not only the fact that it provides a lot of nutrients but also because you’re having that fasting intervention which can be good for metabolism and be good for your gut. So you really get a nice benefit from—it’s not truly a fast. It’s more of a pseudo fast.

DrKP: Yeah.

Dr. Ruscio: It’s a broth fast really.

DrKP: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ruscio: But you have a good amount of nutrition coming in. But you’re also in a semi-fasted state. And I think that really has potential to really be a win. I think it’s one of the reasons that underlies why we see so many nice results with this kind of broth fast.

DrKP: Oh, it’s really great! I call it the “one soup punch” because it really helps your insulin levels plummet, because you have to remember that insulin puts on pounds. Excess insulin is the biggest driver of excess weight. So the bottom line is excess insulin lays down fat. And we have to watch this.

And also with the mini-fasting, again, you’re going to burn existing body fat because to get rid of fat, you have to break down fatty acids out of your fat stores. This is what we have to do. We have to get them into your bloodstream. We have to break down the fatty acids and get them into your bloodstream. And this can be done when we fast.

Also, it does another thing which I love. Mini-fasting helps clean up your cells, and this is one of the main principles of fasting. You trigger a process that helps your body take out the trash, so to speak. So your body is cleaning out these old and worn out cells. They don’t serve you anymore.

And it also lowers inflammation. Mini-fasting is going to help you lower inflammation. I know I keep coming back to that word inflammation, but anything that increases inflammation is going to make you put on weight. It’s going to make you look older. It’s going to make you ill. That’s just the bottom line.

So anything that decreases, that helps you live an anti-inflammatory lifestyle, is really important. And fasting fights inflammation right at its roots. And that’s why I love it. And there all kinds of studies down to show this. It’s not just me saying this. This is a fact.

You also beef up something called BDNF. This is a protein. It’s called brain-derived neurotrophic factor. And it’s a protein that improves your insulin sensitivity. And this is important because this accelerates weight loss. So you want to make sure that your body really knows what to do with insulin. And so I love the fact that fasting does that.

And also probably my favorite thing about fasting is that your levels of growth hormone surge. So this is great. So that’s like the youth hormone. It really helps you a lot. So the human growth hormone increases on average of about 1300% in women and 2000% in men with fasting. So it’s definitely worth doing. It helps you burn fat faster.

Modifications

Dr. Ruscio: So I think it’s safe for us to say that for almost any condition, trying a broth fast could be a good idea. And so we don’t need to beat this to death because I think people understand that it can help almost anything. And to go through each condition one by one would take us a few hours probably.

DrKP: Yes, days.

Dr. Ruscio: Yeah, so maybe a better way to come across this is let’s look at a few areas where people might be at risk for not reacting well or people who might have certain sensitivities that need to modify the bone broth.

And here are a few things that come to mind that I’d like to get your take on—those who have a tendency toward hypoglycemia, those who are histamine or glutamic acid sensitive. And these are the people who might get brain fog from—

DrKP: Yeah.

Dr. Ruscio: Soup sometimes. And those with SIBO or IBS who might have some sensitivities to the glycosaminoglycans—

DrKP: The GAGs, yeah.

Dr. Ruscio: Glycans.

DrKP: Yeah.

Dr. Ruscio: Yeah. So are there different things? Do you have people sometimes use an anti-histamine along with it? Do you have them do a short simmer or a pressure cooker?

DrKP: Yep.

Dr. Ruscio: What are some ways people can modify this?

DrKP: I’d say out of everything you said, as far as the hypoglycemia, we’ve never seen that ever, ever, ever, ever in all the testing that we’ve done.

That’s the reason why there is so much positivity to using bone broth fasting as a part of your maintenance programming for weight loss and for healing conditions, because those that have struggled so long to really implement a lot of this intermittent fasting but that have not been able to are finally free of that. They’re finally able because you don’t get the cravings and the crashes because of the amino acids and the protein in the bone broth. It helps a lot. So that’s off the table.

I would say the most common thing for what you just said, the most common issue, would be those that feel, “You know what? I feel nauseous after bone broth. I have a light head. Or I don’t feel clear. It just doesn’t work for me.” They’re actually are people that have a harder time with that. And it’s the glutamate, as you said, and the histamine. It can be a problem for people.

Here’s how we solve that problem. Cook the broth for less period of time. And you will still get a lot of the benefits. Cook it for a shorter period of time, or as you mentioned, use a pressure cooker, because you’re cooking it faster, less period of time. It’s extremely helpful for people to do those two things. So cook it for six hours. Simmer the broth for six hours. And trust me, you’re still going to get a lot of benefit.

The most important thing that you have to remember about not having a histamine type of reaction or a glutamate reaction is not to store it for a long period of time. So you don’t want broth that’s been sitting in the refrigerator more than a day because you’re going to concentrate those glutamates in there. You just are.

So drink it within 24 hours. And simmer it for a shorter period of time. And use a pressure cooker if you find that that helps. And that’s just a way to cook it over a shorter period of time. So you can cook it for a shorter period of time, use a pressure cooker, and don’t store it as long.

Dr. Ruscio: Gotcha. Now, with the pressure cooker, how long would that take?

DrKP: Two hours is a good period of time.

Dr. Ruscio: Two hours.

DrKP: An hour and a half to two hours. I remember the first time I was introduced to this whole deal about using pressure cookers to make broth. And I even said on a couple podcasts a year and a half ago or so, “There’s no way anything gelatinous is coming out of that. There’s just no way.”

Well, all of a sudden, all these people started sending me there pictures of their gelatinous broth. And I said, “I’d better test this out.” I just didn’t find that there could be anyway you could get a lot of gelatin out of that short period of time. But I was wrong.

You can make beautiful broth using—my favorite one is the Instant Pot. I think they call it Instant Pot. That’s my favorite one. They sell it on Amazon. And it’s just an electric pressure cooker that makes it really easy to cook broth quickly. And you’re still going to get all the benefit. So you can’t go wrong.

Dr. Ruscio: Yeah. I like that. I think people appreciate having the specific recommendation in terms of a product.

DrKP: Yeah.

Dr. Ruscio: It always helps.

DrKP: Yeah, it does help.

Do You Cook the Meat with the Broth?

Dr. Ruscio: And I’ve heard some people make the comment that if you don’t cook the meat in the broth, you’ll have less glutamic acid or potentially histamine production. So for example, using chicken thigh bones but not the actual chicken thigh meat, have you found that that helps people—

DrKP: Well, here’s the only time I find that to be true, not with the chicken. This is interesting. Not with the fish, not with the turkey—with the beef broths. So adding in shank or adding in some oxtail or adding in some short rib, those meats, I always recommend that if you want a meaty, beautiful broth and you want to make it more of a meal, you add those in, the meatier taste. But those that have glutamate sensitivities, it’s more reactive. We have not found the same with chicken, turkey, or fish.

Dr. Ruscio: Interesting.

DrKP: Yes.

The Best Way to Start Fasting

Dr. Ruscio: Okay. So I think we’ve touched on a lot of these. But are there any other recommendations in terms of the best way for people to use fasting? And I’m sure people may be thinking—

DrKP: Yeah.

Dr. Ruscio: “Do I just skip breakfast? Do I do it for a couple days?”

DrKP: Well, if you’re listening and you’re saying, “This is all well and good. And I know you have this great diet going, but I’m not into it. What’s the quick and easy? Give me the skinny.” The skinny would be just incorporate two cups of bone broth into your diet every day. And that’s going to do a whole lot to heal you, a whole lot to help you. And so that would be the prescription for somebody who just wants to move forward with bone broth but doesn’t want a whole deal behind it.

But if you are looking to improve the way you look, the way you feel, or there’s a condition that you really want to work on healing, then I would recommend doing two nonconsecutive days a week of bone broth mini-fast, and that is sip on broth during the day.

At 7 o’clock, if you wish, you can have one light meal of a protein, fat, carbohydrate, a serving. This is all illustrated in my new cookbook. It goes through the entire diet plus lots of recipes in The Bone Broth Diet Cookbook. Everything is in there.

But basically, two nonconsecutive days a week, you’d have the bone broth. Sip during the day. 7 o’clock, a light meal if you need to. And what I say is, “If you don’t need to do the meal, don’t do the meal.” If you feel like you go crazy and you need it, it’s okay. It’s not going to change your results.

The only thing you have to worry about is becoming a human vacuum as soon as you start eating. So that’s my only fear because, for some people, it just sets them off. And they just go crazy.

Dr. Ruscio: Right.

DrKP: It really depends on you.

Dr. Ruscio: I really like the recommendation. That’s something I found a lot of people at the clinic end up doing. They sometimes can do the complete day. Or sometimes, just having that meal at nighttime is just the kind of compromise they need to be able to do the fast.

DrKP: Yes!

Dr. Ruscio: I think that’ll work for a lot of people. Yeah.

DrKP: And it’s so okay. It’s so okay because we tested it out again. And there isn’t any difference. There’s no difference. You can totally feel free to have that light 7 o’clock meal described in the book. It’s so easy to throw together. You’re not going to have any difference.

Some people are just fine just doing the minifast. And they don’t feel like they even need to do that. And for me personally, and I know a lot of patients, they like to pick the mini-fast days that are their busiest days because it’s really easy. And you don’t have to deal with food. You don’t have to deal with anything.

Dr. Ruscio: Yeah.

DrKP: You have to get it out.

Dr. Ruscio: Yeah.

DrKP: You’re sipping broth. And you’re not hungry. And it’s great.

Dr. Ruscio: I agree. And I’m the same way actually. On a busy day, I love to be fasting.

DrKP: Me, too.

Dr. Ruscio: Because you have a lot of energy. You don’t have to worry about food. And to your other point about it not being that big of a deal having the nighttime meal just reminds me of something that I think it worth reiterating regarding how I am coming to look at functional medicine more broadly, which is that we oftentimes get into these syndromes of making things highly prescriptive and highly complex and highly detailed.

DrKP: So true.

Dr. Ruscio: And the more I’m in practice, the more I realize it’s not that big of a deal. Just as long as you’re in the vicinity, in the ballpark, doing it generally the way that you should—generally doing a fast but maybe having one small meal—is just as good as fasting all day. We don’t have to get all bent out of shape if we’re someone trying to do the fasting, get hungry, and then have a little bit of food at night.

How to Make Bone Broth

DrKP: Yeah, here’s the whole theorem behind the broth. The whole kit and caboodle is—don’t be too cognitive about it. Don’t get in your head about it. You don’t have to be so precise in making the broth. Let me just walk you through it.

You go to the grocery store. You pick up a chicken with the carcass. You pick up the chicken. You can buy it already cooked even. So you’re buying a cooked chicken. You take all of the meat off the chicken, throw the carcass in a pot.

When I say celery, onions, and carrots, you’re not peeling, you’re not dicing. No! Take the carrots. Break them. Throw them in. Take the celery. Bam! One chop. Throw them in. I’d say about three carrots, three to four stalks of celery. Take the onion. Bam! Bam! Two cuts, quarter it. That’s it. Throw it in there.

I like Celtic salt. You want to make sure your salt is either light gray or pink. I like Celtic sea salts. You want to make sure it’s a mineralized salt so it can kill you or make you well. You want to make sure it’s a salt that will help you, that will mineralize you. Throw some salt in there. Throw some pepper in there. And then take it from there.

Then it’s your own personal play, your own spin. For me, I like lemongrass. I take a stalk of lemongrass. Bam! I just cut it right down the center, throw it in the pot, put the lid on.

I like slow cookers. They’re my favorite way to cook it. I stick the slow cooker on high for an hour. I turn it down to low. And I am done. I go to bed. I go to work. I go out with my kids, whatever it is I do. But I let the Crockpot—the slow cooker is doing the work for me. And then you have this beautiful broth that really is incredible and can do so much for you.

And that’s what I really want everyone to take from this conversation. This broth can do so much for you. Let it transform you. Whether it’s the way you look, the way you feel; whether it’s a condition you have, try it. Try it. Food first, as you said. So true.

What Bones are Better for The Broth?

Dr. Ruscio: And I want to ask you where people can track down your book and connect with you. But one final question before we go there. Does it matter if—let’s say someone buys a rotisserie chicken that’s already cooked and then they use those bones that have already been cooked? Or is it better to use bones that have been cooked or bones that have not been cooked yet in the broth?

DrKP: It’s okay. It’s the chicken carcasses. We always make beautiful broths from them. They’re perfectly fine. The only thing I can tell you is that the thicker bones are typically better because you have more cartilage. And cartilage leads to more collagen. And cooked collagen is that gelatin. And that gelatin is going to go in there and heal your gut. That’s the goal behind all of this. So thicker bones, you have to think that way.

But chicken carcasses that are already cooked—I have so many working moms that I’m dealing with or busy people that it’s either that or nothing.

Dr. Ruscio: Yeah.

DrKP: So again, it’s a matter of, “Do you need a perfect world for this?” And the whole point behind this broth—

Dr. Ruscio: Right.

DrKP: And what I’m trying to teach is that it doesn’t have to be a perfect world. It really, really doesn’t. Do the best that you can. Clean bones, bones that have never been cooked before, you’re going to get more out of them. You will.

You’ll get more out of them but not enough to make a big deal about it and go out of your way and think, “You know what? I’m coming home from work. I’m not going to use that chicken carcass because the bones are already cooked. So I’m just going to grab a salad. Or I’m going to grab something else instead.”

And I say, “No. No, no, no, no, no. It’s okay to use that.”

Dr. Ruscio: Right.

DrKP: It’s perfectly fine to use the chicken carcasses that we can buy and make it easy. And I have to tell you, that’s the way that most patients that I see make it because it’s an under-five-minute deal, just so you know. It’s literally under five minutes.

Dr. Ruscio: All right. So the moral of the story—don’t sweat the small details on this stuff.

DrKP: Exactly.

Episode Wrap Up

Dr. Ruscio: So where can people find the book and connect with you if they wanted to learn more about your work?

DrKP: Yes, thank you. It’s DrKellyAnn.com. There’s no E. It’s just straight up K-E-L-L-Y-A-N-N. DrKellyAnn.com.

And The Bone Broth Diet is a great book. Many, many copies have sold all over the country, all over the world now. And the new book is Dr. Kelly Ann’s Bone Broth Diet Cookbook. What I love about the cookbook, Michael, is that it’s got all of the concepts that The Bone Broth Diet has, plus it has over 120 recipes.

So you’re going to get fat-burning recipes, all kinds of broth recipes. It’s beautifully done. It’s a really well-thought-out book that I’m very proud of.

And also on my site I have delicious broths. I have delicious powder broths and collagens and so forth that people really love. And I’m very picky about sourcing and ingredients and all that.

Dr. Ruscio: Perfect. Perfect. Well, I think this was a very insightful conversation. I’m sure people will get a lot out of it. And if you’ve been thinking about trying broth in any application, give it a shot. And I think Kelly Ann has put together a good book to give you some resources to get started. So Kelly, thank you for your work and your book.

DrKP: Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Ruscio: And for taking the time. And Happy New Year. And until I see you or talk to you again.

DrKP: Okay, sounds good. Thanks, doc.

Dr. Ruscio: All right, Kelly. Take care.

DrKP: Bye.

Dr. Ruscio: Bye-bye.

DrKP: Bye.