A gelatin-rich, spiced beef broth. You make it once, and then a bowl takes about five minutes.
Adapted from Cooking with Chris (@coookwithchris). The thread names the spices but gives no amounts. The amounts below are standard pho quantities, and the nutrition notes are mine.
Per bowl: 2 cups broth, 4 oz flank steak, 1 cup rice noodles and garnishes. Full profile ↓
Swaps: oxtail or short rib in place of the neck bone gives a meatier broth. For chicken broth, use 3–4 lb backs and necks (or a carcass) plus 1–2 lb feet. For all beef, skip the feet. It still sets.
Steak slices thinner if it goes in the freezer for 20–30 minutes first.
Calculated from the same USDA data as Build a Day and the Food Database. Change the bowl here:
% 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, the ratio in gelatin. A batch made with feet and knuckles that sets firmly will probably come out higher. Carbohydrate is what's left of the calories after protein and fat. Herbs, chili and lime are included but add almost nothing.
The thread's health claims, checked.
| Claim in the thread | What the evidence shows | Holds? |
|---|---|---|
| Broth plus lean meat "balances the glycine to methionine ratio" | Correct, and the numbers are large. See below. | Yes |
| Gelatinous bone broth is "one of the healthiest things" you can make | It's a real source of glycine, but the amount varies widely from batch to batch.[1] | Mostly |
| Marrow and rib bones are there "for minerals" | Broth has less than 5% of the daily calcium or magnesium per serving.[2] | No |
Muscle meat is rich in methionine and comparatively poor in glycine. The body uses glycine to clear the extra methyl groups methionine supplies (via glycine N-methyltransferase), which keeps homocysteine down. The full mechanism is on the Methionine and Glycine / Collagen pages. Collagen is about one-third glycine and has almost no methionine, so broth is close to the ideal complement. USDA amino-acid data for this bowl:
| Glycine | Methionine | Ratio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 oz flank steak alone | 3.9 g | 1.6 g | 2.3 : 1 |
| + 2 cups broth (~20 g protein as gelatin) | +4.5 g | +0.1 g | |
| The bowl (8 oz steak + broth + noodles) | 8.4 g | 1.9 g | 4.5 : 1 |
| The bowl with 4 oz steak | 6.5 g | 1.0 g | 6 : 1 |
The broth doubles the glycine-to-methionine ratio of a steak dinner. The biochemistry is solid; whether a better ratio improves long-term outcomes in people is less certain, and that question is graded on the Methionine page. (Strong for the arithmetic and the pathway)
↑ back to summaryAn Australian Institute of Sport group analyzed home-made, café and commercial bone broths for collagen amino acids.[1] Broth made to a standard recipe had significantly less glycine, proline and hydroxyproline than the 20 g collagen doses used in research. Recipes that weren't standardized varied widely. Café broths were richest, and commercial broths were lowest. The authors concluded that broth can't be relied on as a consistent source.
For a home cook that cuts both ways. Your batch is probably better than a carton, and knuckles plus feet plus a 24-hour simmer is about as gelatin-heavy as recipes get. But you can't know the dose without a lab. The practical test is whether the broth sets firm in the fridge. If you want a known glycine dose, a scoop of collagen or gelatin stirred into the bowl provides it. (Moderate — direct measurements, but one lab and a handful of recipes)
↑ back to summaryThe thread lists marrow and rib bones "for minerals." A Taiwanese study measured metal extraction from pork, beef and chicken bones under controlled conditions.[2] Home-made and commercial broths contained a few tenths of a milligram of calcium and magnesium per serving, under 5% of the daily requirement. Calcium in bone is locked in hydroxyapatite, which water at a simmer barely dissolves.
Two variables did help in that study. Cooking longer than 8 hours extracted more, which favors this recipe's long simmer. Acid helped far more: dropping the pH from 8.4 to 5.3 raised calcium and magnesium extraction about 17- and 15-fold. A splash of vinegar in the pot is the only lever that matters, and even then the starting amount is small. In this bowl the minerals come from the meat, the fish sauce and the vegetables. Fish sauce supplies more sodium and potassium than the bones supply calcium. (Moderate — one well-controlled lab study)
↑ back to summaryBones store lead, and a 2013 letter reported organic chicken-bone broths with 7–9.5 µg/L of lead, several times the tap water they were made with.[3] In absolute terms that is 3–5 µg in a 2-cup bowl. That's below the 15 µg/L EPA action level for drinking water, and the larger 2017 study found lead and cadmium at "a few µg per serving" and judged the risk minimal.[2] It is worth knowing about if you drink broth by the quart every day. At a bowl or two a day it isn't a reason to stop. (Moderate — small samples, but two labs agree on the magnitude)
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