Classic chicken soup built on a broth that sets like jelly. The broth takes a few hours in a pressure cooker, and the soup takes one more.
From Cooking with Chris (@coookwithchris). Where he gives no amount, I filled one in and said so. The nutrition numbers and the notes are mine.
This is calculated from the same USDA data as Build a Day. A bowl is one-eighth of the pot: 1 cup of broth, about 6 oz of cooked chicken and the vegetables.
% of the daily target for men (the same targets as Build a Day). ~ = mostly estimated. The broth uses the site's bone broth entry, which takes its protein from commercial bone broths and assumes glycine is 22% of protein. A broth made from feet that sets firm will probably come out higher. 4 lb of raw chicken is counted as 3 lb cooked. Noodles are 1 cup cooked. The numbers use Tinkyada for brown rice pasta, since USDA doesn't list Jovial.
Two claims from the thread, and one from his replies.
| Claim | What the evidence shows | Holds? |
|---|---|---|
| "The final product is pure collagen/gelatin" | It's a gelatin-rich broth, not pure gelatin, and the amount varies by batch. More ↓ | Overstated |
| Add 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar | Acid does pull more calcium and magnesium out of bones, but from a very low starting point. More ↓ | Small effect |
| Histamine "isn't an issue unless you have a histamine intolerance" | No one has measured it in home broth. His advice to freeze broth is the right precaution anyway. More ↓ | Reasonable |
Feet and necks are the right choice. Chicken feet are mostly skin, tendon and cartilage, so most of their protein is collagen. A broth that sets firm in the fridge has clearly extracted a lot of it. But even a firm gel is mostly water: commercial gelatin sets at a few percent by weight. When broths have been measured, home-made beat commercial, café broths were richest, and recipes that weren't standardized varied widely.[1] None reached the 20 g collagen doses used in research.
The firm set tells you this batch is at the good end. A bowl here also brings 40-plus grams of protein from the chicken, so the soup as a whole is filling and complete either way. For the glycine-to-methionine logic of pairing broth with meat, see the pho notes. (Moderate: direct measurements, one lab)
↑ back to summaryAcid dissolves bone mineral. In a controlled extraction study, dropping broth pH from 8.4 to 5.3 raised calcium and magnesium extraction about 17- and 15-fold.[2] But the same study found that ordinary home and commercial broths had under 5% of the daily calcium or magnesium per serving. A tablespoon of vinegar in a full pot is probably a much milder acid than pH 5.3. So expect a modest gain from a very low base. The vinegar is harmless and worth keeping, but this isn't a mineral food. (Moderate for the extraction data. Inferred for how much 1 tbsp changes the pot's pH.)
↑ back to summaryA reply asked about histamine, and Chris said it's only an issue with histamine intolerance and suggested pressure-cooking and freezing. I found no published measurements of histamine in home bone broth. What is well established, mostly from fish, is how histamine forms: bacteria break down the amino acid histidine during storage, and cooking doesn't destroy histamine once it's made. A long simmer followed by days in the fridge gives bacteria more time. A pressure cooker followed by freezing gives them less. If broth or leftovers bother you, histamine is a plausible reason, and freezing in portions is the fix. (Inferred: food-microbiology principle, no broth-specific data)
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