Transcript of Episode 78: Bone Broth Fast
With Dr. Daniel Pompa
Dr. Pompa:
Well, here we are on an amazing episode of Cellular Healing TV. Well, look, we had such rave reviews about Meredith, our amazing in-house cook, that we brought her back today with a topic that she actually requested and a great one, actually. Some of our YouTube videos, I think some of our number one hits are on when Warren and Tula made bone broth.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
So I think it’s going to be a great subject here today because so many people are understanding the benefits of bone broth today for multiple reasons, and we’re going to talk more about that. I think some of the benefits, probably, you didn’t know, but also, we’re going to tell you some other ways to use bone broth and intermittent fasting. Meredith, something we talk to them a lot about is intermittent fasting, but bone stock fasting is one of our favorites because there are so many benefits with it. So we are going to demonstrate on how to make a bone stock fast or make a bone stock, I should say, but we want to talk a little bit about it. Of course, we want to give you a little education because this is something that we do with our clients and our doctors do with their patients. So this is a very, very important episode, for sure. So Meredith, thank you for joining us.
Meredith:
Oh, thanks for having me. This is—it’s so much fun to be on here, and to be interacting with you and everyone and just getting this information out because it is. It’s so important, and it’s just a lot of fun to talk about.
Dr. Pompa:
Well, this time—last time we did the smoothies. If you haven’t seen the smoothie—Meredith actually inspired me to start doing more smoothies again. I had said, I was—right, when I was sick, I did them every day. It was like I was addicted to it because it really helped me with my assimilation and healing my gut. And we were—I was standing next to you. I was on your left over there. I was in Pittsburgh. We were doing some other filming. But this time I’m all the way here in Utah.
Meredith:
Yeah, doing my part.
Dr. Pompa:
Exactly, so, well, anyways, I think this is a great subject that people are hearing a lot about. They actually—in New York City, they have a drive-through where—I think it’s on First Street somewhere where you can actually pull up in the morning. Instead of getting your hot cup of java, people are getting their hot cup of bone stock. My gosh, I mean, that has come a long way. And I have to take it back further, and I want you to give us a little history that you said you found. But look, for thousands of years we’ve talked about bone stock. And your history may not go back thousands of years, but let’s see how far you go back.
But really, though, I mean, bone stock has been used all the way back. I mean, come on. Think about it. Our grandmothers, right? It’s like, you have a cold. Have some chicken soup, or this stock, or that stock. For every ailment, our grandmothers were telling us to drink stock. And I think we all laughed, really. At least I did. I would be like, “Oh, no, that’s ridiculous. What’s that going to do?”
I was a little naïve. I didn’t know the benefits that I know now. And I’ll tell you this right now. Grandma was right. So this is nothing new under the sun. I just think it—it’s gotten popular now. People are realizing the health benefits. Probably, Meredith, because all the gut issues that are today, right?
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Different when we were kids. We didn’t have gut issues. I mean, but today, glyphosate, and all the toxins, and new toxins, and neuro toxins, and all the GMO foods, etc., we have all these people with gut problems, so no wonder it’s come back into vogue. So what’s that little bit of history, and what are your thoughts on that?
Meredith:
Well, I just think it’s amazing too to look back, just with our ancestors, and what they consumed. And how there’s such a need for it today because our bodies have become so depleted due to the modern lifestyle and the toxicity in our world too. So these benefits we’re re-realizing. And it’s just really exciting to be able to look back on time, and see what they were doing then, what we still need to do now, and how it still works to heal our bodies. So it’s really, really cool, and just grateful that we found this again, and—because the benefits that it has really are remarkable, and it does work.
Because you’ve done it; I’ve done it. We’ve seen so many clients, and just so many people have really, really incredible results from incorporating bone broth into their life and into their diet and also using it for fasting purposes. So there’s a lot of different things that you can do with it to really get the benefits, and it’s something that we have our ancestors to thank because they knew what they were doing back then. And finally, we’re bringing it back into the modern world and being able to use it now too. So it’s just pretty awesome.
Dr. Pompa:
Well, it’s estimated that 70-80% of the immune system, somewhere in there, is—starts in the gut. So our grandmothers were right. But let me just talk a little bit about why it works so well. I mean, leaky gut is estimated to be 95% of the population right now, and most people don’t even know they have leaky gut, right? Hours later, days later they’re responding to things they ate the day before or hours before.
Well, there’s something in the stock that is pulled out of the bones. Well, actually, many things, but something called Type II collagen. We’ve talked about collagen, and it is amazing. It not only heals the gut, but it’s good for your skin. So it’s another reason why bone stock fasting has gotten very popular because people do it, and even just in a four-day fast, which we’ll talk about, utilizing only bone stock, everybody says—my clients all say the same thing, “Oh, my gosh, I really noticed a difference in my skin, Dr. Pompa.” So that’s the Type II collagen, the collagen in there as we know.
I mean, people try to put on collagen, Meredith. I mean, they’re doing this collagen product, that collagen product, but really, it’s what happens from within. That Type II collagen really is repairing to the skin and collagen makes up that cement, that matrix in the skin that really helps us not wrinkle and helps our skin look really healthy and good. So it’s a…
Meredith:
-inaudible- at that, right?
Dr. Pompa:
That’s right. So it’s food for not just the gut. Of course, that helps heal the leaky gut, but it’s also food for the skin. Well, in these—in bone stock is also a lot of minerals and trace minerals that get pulled from the bone, and it makes it this perfect thing to fast with. Years ago, I’ve said—by the way, watch, if you want more information on some of these fasts, Ancient Healing. We did an episode on it. I think we’ve done some on intermittent fasting as well, but in Ancient Healing, I talked a little bit about that.
But during a four-day stock fast, we’re only—we only drink stock all day long. And we can talk a little bit. I’ll give you some hints and clues about that because some people go, “Oh, my god. By day three, I didn’t even want to drink it, smell it.” You can switch it up. There’s lamb stock bones, right? There’s, obviously, chicken, which most people know, so you can switch it up. But Meredith’s going to give you some tips to make it taste and smell better too.
But anyways, during that time when we’re doing just bone stock, bone stock not only gives you this collagen, and all these great minerals, and nutrition, and the marrow with all that great fat, right, Meredith, and all those qualities in here. We talk a little bit about that. But it starves down all bacteria. Good and bad. Now I have to show this. So people—we talked about dysbiosis. That means you have too many bad, and not enough good, right?
So we can try to re-inoculate with a bunch of good, but often times, when this dysbiosis gets too bad, we just can’t get the good guys to take root and overcome the bad guys. So what we do with a stock fast, we starve all bacteria down, and then, day five, after the stock fast, we re-inoculate utilizing very unique bacteria, obviously, things like fermented vegetables, Amasai product, the SueroGold, which is another -inaudible- Whey Water.
Meredith:
We have Whey Water here.
Dr. Pompa:
But also, we talked about Prescript-Assist, I think, last week. We talked about MBC, some of those unique bacterias. We re-inoculate these bacterias back in after we starve down all bacteria. And now look, the goods are able to come up so some pretty neat stuff. And sometimes we use that—the bacteriophage that we talked about on one of the shows, they go—those guys go in there and kill off bad guys, and then we can re-inoculate again. But bone stock fasting drops all bacteria, which is a really good thing. It gives us a chance to what we call reset the microbiome.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
So there’s a little—just some hints on why this works so well. And again, once we’re able to bring down and fix that dysbiosis, that affects our immune system greatly. And also, it gives the gut a chance to heal because we’re not dumping a bunch of inflammatory foods in and, also, Type II collagen. So it heals the gut. We can re-inoculate the gut, fix the dysbiosis so a lot of wins.
Meredith:
Mm-hmm. What are some other conditions that could be impacted by the bone broth fasting in particular? I know—I think you’ve used it before to impact SIBO, which is a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So can you talk a little bit about that because I think a lot of people out there have been hearing that? There are a lot of people out there that are suffering from it too so you can talk about how that’s different from leaky gut.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, this is SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which simply means you have too many bacteria in the upper small intestine. Look, we’re—our large intestine is supposed to have all these bacteria, the good guys, which when we bring our fiber—so we pull the nutrients out of the food in our small intestine. And once it gets to the colon, the large intestine, these bacteria start eating that fiber, and when they do that, it’s a fermentation process that takes place. It actually creates things called short chain fatty acids that we use. It’s estimated about 30% of our energy. Because the bacteria eat this fiber and, literally, they’re waste. So they poop out these short chain fatty acids that we reabsorb, and we get all this amazing energy from. So you can see another reason why the bacteria is so important in the large intestine, and it breaks down the fiber, and so it helps with constipation, moving it out of the body. So this is a very, very important process.
Well, when these bacteria leak up into the small intestine, for various reasons—obviously, dysbiosis can be one of the reasons, and it affects the barrier, so to speak, between the two intestines. And that’s one reason. And they get up in there, and now we have two—these bacteria that are in the small intestine. So now they’re fermenting things before they should be fermented. So what are the symptoms of that? Because many people, Meredith, have this problem and don’t know it.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
They’re not diagnosed. Bloating after meals, so you eat and then you just get that fullness way up here like, gosh, you feel like you have—two hours, three hours later, you feel like you just ate. That’s the number one symptom.
Meredith:
People look pregnant too. I’ve seen that. Where you’re stomach bulges out so much that it looks like a pregnancy bump.
Dr. Pompa:
Yes, absolutely, and it feels just up high too and, obviously, belching after—a lot of belching hours after meals. That can be small intestinal bacteria overgrowth. And also, people become very intolerant to even things like a lot of fiber. So when they eat a lot of fiber, it ferments. Remember, the bacteria start eating the fiber too soon, and what happens is they cause the bloating. They even become intolerant to things like probiotics because you’re adding more bacteria, and it’s making things worse. People that have taken a lot of antibiotics in their day also are very common that they have this SIBO issue so just some things to look out for.
Is there a test somebody can do? More labs are doing SIBO tests. There’s a breath test that’s—that fermentation starts to come up this way, and some of your burps may smell like a methane gas or a sulfur gas, if you will, and that’s an indication. But there’s a breath test you can do where they actually test that gas. And basically, it’s because you’re fermenting too—up high instead of down low.
Meredith:
Mm-hmm, yeah. So how would you incorporate the bone broth fasting to treat SIBO?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, great question. So I said that we utilize it to starve down all bacteria. So when we put people on fasts, we can do at least four days. I like four-day fasts as opposed to three because magic happens at day three. And I like to ride that out for one more day. So a lot of really important things like protein, sparing mode, etc., happen in that day three. So I like to ride it one more day. That’s why I’m a believer in a four-day fast. Now, what happens is we starve down that bacteria in the small intestine, so it gives the immune system a chance to beat it. So that’s the benefit of it.
Now, Meredith, we also often times go into what we call a SIBO diet after the fast. So let’s say you do four days of stock. Day five and on, we put people on no fiber, no vegetables, no fruit, basically, meat and fat. Why? We don’t want to feed the bacteria by giving it fiber. So vegetables have fiber, so we have to go to that degree, often times, even for a month on that diet. And then, how do I know when to eat a regular diet again? Well, you start trying to eat some fibers, and if you get bloated, you need to continue. So some people have to continue for a couple months, believe it or not, and those are severe cases. And I think to your left you have a pathogen purge there.
Meredith:
Yes.
Dr. Pompa:
You can get some things that help kill that bacteria during that time that you’re on the SIBO diet, so to speak, and that’s a pathogen purge. Those are just things that kill bad guys. And it’s—you could, obviously, call Revelation Health, and talk to one of the gals there. If you said pathogen purge, they would know. But if you do it along with the SIBO—the stock fast and then a SIBO diet, you can help kill off that bacteria. And then, eventually, re-inoculate again, but the first test is to make sure you can eat fibrous foods or even small amounts of sugar. Like eating some berries, and go, “Oh, I’m not expanding.”
So people that are, by the way, are very carbohydrate or sugar intolerant, they often times have SIBO too because it feeds those bacteria. So we want to starve them down and kill them. Make sure they’re dead, and then we can re-inoculate some of the bacteria in the lower colon. And then the broth—go ahead.
Meredith:
Oh, when would you take this pathogen purge in the whole process?
Dr. Pompa:
I like to take it—I like to just do the SIBO—I’m sorry, the stock fast by itself. And then day five, you could start doing the SIBO diet plus the pathogen purge.
Meredith:
And would it impact other issues like fungal issues, candida, things like that?
Dr. Pompa:
You see that #3 there. That’s called Bactrex. That targets bacteria, but it crosses into fungus as well, candida, for example. Number 4 is called FungDX, right next to it. That’s focused on funguses and candida. And then ENZEE there, that’s enzymes. Yep, that one. That kills candida by breaking up its—and bacterias. So it kills the—breaks down the cell wall. That’s something else that I can’t see what that is.
Meredith:
And BIND.
Dr. Pompa:
Okay, of course, BIND. Because what BIND does is BIND—when you’re killing off these things, you need BIND to just grab some of the waste, and keep it moving out so you don’t reabsorb the die off and the toxic effect, same reason why we use BIND when we’re doing true cellular detox. We don’t want to retox those toxins. People feel bad when they kill off a lot of bugs. They get a herx reaction, a Herxheimer Reaction where they get a headache. They feel completely fatigued because they’re reabsorbing some of those toxins back into the system, and that’s not good. BIND prevents that.
And by the way, Episode 76, I talk about true cellular detox where that BIND’s used. Everybody who hasn’t watched Episode 76 should watch true cellular detox. We did a great article I wrote on true cellular detox, very, very important part for anybody who wants better health because detoxification is very, very important all the time. We utilize these ancient healing strategies like stock fasting in other things. Diet variation, ketosis, keto-adaptation, we talk about those things in ancient healing, but true cellular detox, going upstream to why the gut got wrecked in the first place, very, very important subject. Watch that episode. Read the article that’s on our website. Put into the Search bar true cellular detox. It will come up.
Meredith:
Yeah, and fasting and true cellular detox, just core components of what you teach, and they are just such powerful strategies because they really do work. And how does the fasting fit in with the true cellular detox as far as timing goes, and how you can bring them both together?
Dr. Pompa:
Well, typically, we like to do at least one fast before we start detox. It’s really part of the preparatory phase. In true cellular detox, I talk about it’s three component that make up real detox, right? I mean, there’s all these different detoxers out there, right, colon cleanse, this cleanse, that cleanse. Typically, they’re downstream from getting to the cell, which by the way, is the first component. We have to fix the cell. Get the cell moving and functioning and move out toxins. That’s key. My 5Rs of cellular healing, that’s where that applies.
And then we want to get these downstream detox pathways open, which is really a preparatory phase, one of the phases, right? And we want to get those open. Fasting really helps us open up these downstream detox pathways. And the last component is using true binders. We talked about CytoDetox as a true binder. And you can learn more about that when you watch that episode. Yeah, so it makes up—really, component number two is opening up downstream detox pathways. So we like to do it before we detox because it gets not only the gut ready, but it has an effect on all of the detox pathways. So that’s really important. My dog just busted in my room here, so I always like to show Rennie.
Meredith:
There you go.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, she’s so cute.
Meredith:
Hi, puppy.
Dr. Pompa:
You’re so cute. Anyways, yeah, so that’s where—that is where that fits in, Meredith. And also, along the way—she’s going to knock my computer over in about ten seconds. Along the way, often times, people need more fasting to keep those pathways open. And we’re not talking about this on this show, and maybe we’ll do a future show. She’s rocking this whole computer. Maybe we’ll do a future show on Whey Water again, right? There’s so many benefits to Whey Water, and that’s the SueroGold product. We showed it on the smoothie recipe show.
But anyways, that’s another subject for another day. Because Whey Water fast, like bone stock fast, very beneficial to the liver, the kidneys, the gut, downstream detox pathways, and we’ll share that show one day. Mark that in your brain. We’ll share that fast.
Meredith:
Yeah, awesome. Then how long—do you ever go a lot longer than four days with the bone broth fasting with people that are really sensitive? Do you sometimes maybe only go a couple days? What’s the time frame you like to use with that?
Dr. Pompa:
One of our doctors that we coach, he started off on a four-day fast. Felt so good he did a seven. From seven he went to ten. From ten he ended up doing about 31.
Meredith:
Wow. -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm. One of my clients just recently did about ten days just on stock because the benefits for her skin. She had a very bizarre skin—autoimmune types of conditions, yeah, they benefit by going longer for sure. Some people can utilize just multiple, even two of these four-day fasts a month so shorter blocks or longer blocks. Some people benefit differently from both.
Meredith:
And there’s no danger in the longer fasts?
Dr. Pompa:
In the old days, I talked a lot about water fasting. Obviously, had some training in water fasting in my past, and there’s massive benefits to water fasting. But you have to be a little careful with water fasting and over a certain amount of days because you can get electrolyte depleted. And it’s a lot harder to get electrolyte depleted when you’re doing a bone stock fast because there’s some natural electrolytes in there. But with that said, let me give some tips there. If you’re feeling super down in energy, and you even get a rapid heart rate, take in more sea salt. Because you do often times need more electrolytes with any fast, and the classic thing is just really feeling weak, and your heart rate starts to speed up. That’s electrolyte. Absolutely, add more sea salt to your stock. However you want to take it in.
By the way, I think one of the most often—questions I get most often is can I still drink water during this fast? Of course you can. Of course you can. Believe me. You’re drinking stock all day. Sometimes drinking extra water becomes more difficult, but sure. Absolutely drink some clean filtered water, reverse RO, distilled, some type of good spring water for sure.
Meredith:
Yeah, and sometimes some herbal tea is nice too, especially if you’re doing it during the colder season.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, absolutely.
Meredith:
Some -inaudible- tea or just some herbal tea. You don’t want to, maybe, have the caffeine too much, but just like a soothing herbal tea can be really nice in the evenings too I found when I’m fasting. Just to have something a little bit different other than the broth. Yeah, awesome, and while we’re on the sea salt subject too, do you want to talk about your 2-2-2 rule, and how that can be incorporated to have more success with the bone broth fast?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Sometimes people that even just—they need a little bit more energy during the fast. Often times, and I don’t always do this, but you can add my 2-2-2 rule where I talk about that in keto-adaptation. You could read those articles. So if you put in ketosis, keto-adaptation into the Search, into Articles, you’ll find those articles. Diet variation, I talk about the 2-2-2 rule. But what it is is it’s having two tablespoons of coconut oil. Those medium-chain triglycerides in there really offer more instant energy to the system. And it’s fat, so it’s not going to feed any of the bacterias. So it’s a good addition for some that just need a little bit more energy. And then the other two is butter where we’re getting grass-fed butter, which offers conjugated linoleic acid and some other fats. And again, it’s not going to feed the bacteria.
And then the other two is the two teaspoons of sea salt. Where, again, I said how important that is to keep up those electrolytes. So the 2-2-2 rule is a nice addition to give yourself a little more energy through the fast and does make it a little easier for people. And I could add one more 2, and that would be two tablespoons of MCT oil, which is pure medium-chain triglyceride, which can offer even more energy, which we sell that on the site as well.
Meredith:
Yeah. We do. We have the coconut oil, and the grass-fed butter, and butter oil as well so, yeah, if you need those. And they are a great addition. And I found when I’ve been fasting and just needed that energy too, even just a spoonful of the butter and a spoonful of the coconut oil really, really helps get you through any of those slumps when you’re fasting because, honestly, you do get tired. You experience typical detox symptoms. And especially if you’re working, trying to do a fast while you’re still living your life, those fats could really help to stabilize your blood sugar and keep you going through it. Can you talk about some of the lifestyle, maybe, impacts too you might have while you’re fasting? What you can expect and when you maybe shouldn’t do a fast?
Dr. Pompa:
Well, I don’t ever want someone to exercise during a four-day fast, right? We want to conserve energy for healing. I think you raise a good point. I mean, the best time to do it is when you can lay low, right? I mean, if you have to go to work, I think adding the 2-2-2 rule is good. I’m a very efficient fat burner. Obviously, my cells can hear those hormones that help fat burning very well. We talk a lot about that, right?
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
I think we need to do a new show on weight loss resistance. We haven’t done a show on that. Because some people…
Meredith:
I’ll write that down.
Dr. Pompa:
Very good, thank you, Meredith. If you’re not efficient fat burner, you’re going to have low energy. When I do the fast, for four days I’m burning my own fat, my stored fat, and I have no problem getting through the day. I could technically even exercise and do just fine. Most people, that’s not the case. So we don’t want to do that. We want to hang low.
But taking in those medium-chain triglycerides that are in coconut oil or MCT oil, if you don’t like coconut oil, the MCT oil doesn’t have a taste. So there’s the clue. But they help you burn fat, and that’s why you get an instant energy. They actually help you burn up the fat. So that’s one that can be an assistance to make you more of a fat burner during the stock fast.
Meredith:
And laying low and anybody that shouldn’t, maybe, do a bone broth fast?
Dr. Pompa:
Well, I mean, look, I think that someone who has a lot of health challenges, I think having someone supervise, your doctor supervising the fast. Obviously, you have to have a doctor who understands this. We’re training doctors all around the country in true cellular detox and these ancient healing strategies is part of what we do. Obviously, there’s much more than that, but yeah, no, it’s a—I think that someone who has a lot of health challenges, having that type of coaching would be helpful. But most people can do it. Fasting is a—it’s an ancient healing tool when we go without food. Animals do it instinctively.
This is an intermittent fast where we’re talking in between 500 and 800 calories a day, which we’re naturally getting from the broth, or Whey Water, or something to that degree. These fasts are better than juice fasting because juice fasting raises glucose every time. It’s a glucose spike, glucose spike, glucose spike. That’s no good. There’s no glucose spike here. We’re controlling our glucose. And I always say if you want to live longer than anybody, just control glucose and insulin better. You will age slow, and look better, and be healthier. Bottom line, number one thing, control glucose, right?
Meredith:
Yeah, a huge win, yeah. And I remember when I first started with the company and working with you guys fasting, I did a SueroGold fast, but soon after, I did the bone broth. And it was my first true experience, but actually, fasting in the right way. I think for a lot of people too, they think oh, my gosh, I’m not going to eat food for a time. How’s my body going to heal? How am I going to live day-to-day without eating food?
I think it really just—it’s a mindset shift that you have to experience to just flipping the switch, and just be committed to doing the fast, and to knowing what you’ll receive from doing it. Because once you do do it, I— like many people, I was thinking, oh, my gosh. I was a little hesitant to do the fast. But once I did it, now—when you see the benefits, and you do it, and you see that it’s not that hard, it’s so worth it. But I think a lot of people these days have a mindset challenge with fasting. So can you talk a little bit about that, and maybe how to break through that mindset so that people aren’t maybe as fearful of fasting?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, I mean, look, I think when I talk about diet variation as a way to regain our health, keep our health, all of our ancestors were forced into times of plenty in times of not so plenty, right? They were forced into fasts because the food wasn’t there. Things happen, right? And our bodies are really set up for that so going periodic times with less food, and in this case, in an intermittent fast, it’s less food. It’s not without food and sometimes without food. But the body releases certain hormones, drives certain hormones that, really, for survival. And we know now that those times really make us healthier. Our bodies instinctively are set up to go through these survival times, and people live longer when they go through these times eating less.
Look, we can think about all these anti-aging products, supplements, and spend a lot of money on them, but really, these strategies are really what science shows actually really make you age slower so that you should motivate you. Often times, people that when you’re going to do a diet shift, go into the cellular healing diet or make a diet shift, we start people on fasting because it’s a way to get your appetite curbed very quickly. So when you come off the fast, all of a sudden, a piece of broccoli looks really good doesn’t it?
Meredith:
Delicious, yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
And people always say that. They’re like, “Oh, my gosh,” it’s like, “these foods I thought before, I just—I was salivating over vegetables,” right?
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s another—a mode of resetting your appetite or resetting your taste buds. There are multiple good things happen in a fast, and when you focus on—read the articles, watch the videos while you’re fasting, then you’ll be much more inspired during the fast. But after about—the first two days are the hardest. Everybody says it. Most people by day three break free, and they’re like, “Wow. I feel so much better.” And day four, I said, many people just want to keep going. Because now your body’s starting to feed from its waste, it’s feeding from its fat supplies, and you just feel so much better. Your brain clears.
You realize how many foods you were eating that made you feel bad, even healthy foods. Because you have a leaky gut, you were responding, creating inflammation. And realizing you were in a brain fog because of certain healthy foods that were leaking across the gut, driving antibodies, driving inflammation, and affecting the way your brain works. And you take those things away and you’re like, wow. Give your gut a chance to heal. And by the way, isn’t that part of it? We’re just simply not putting food in digestion. Food assimilation takes more energy than anything we do as humans. We’re arresting that process.
Now we’re able to utilize the healing or other healing. Utilize the energy. I knew that came out wrong. Utilize the energy for other healing in the body that needs to take place. That’s why, another reason why intermittent fasts periodically work. We only have so much energy, and when you’re sick challenged, you’re eating food all the time. You’re wasting the very energy you need to heal the cell. You want to get well, fix the cell. We need the energy to do it. Taking that energy away from all this assimilating digesting as a way to grab energy from here and put it over here.
Meredith:
Yeah, it makes so much sense. And I do this—a little point too. I remember when I first was fasting, how much time I had during the day too. I couldn’t believe it. When you’re not either thinking about food, preparing food, eating the food, you have so much more time to do a lot of other things in life that get put off because you just “never have enough time.” But when you’re fasting or even just doing the daily intermittent fasting, you have a lot more time to do a lot of other things in life. So that’s my little side note I did notice as well.
Dr. Pompa:
I believe that one of the Biblical principles of fasting—I mean, fasting is throughout the Bible. And God really encouraged us to fast and pray. Well, why? Why? Well, there’s more than just physical healing. It’s physical, emotional, and spiritual healing occur during a fast. So when we go without food, part of it is is that we literally start to focus on things that we never had time, even emotional time, to actually focus on. So more than just physical healing takes place in fasting. It’s spiritual and emotional healing take time and occur in fasting. So, Meredith, we better start showing how to do this.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Let’s turn it over to the expert here. So what do you got going on over there?
Meredith:
All right, well, I don’t know if I’m the expert because this is very, very easy, and anybody can do this at home. My basic recipe only has four ingredients so really, really simple here. I’m just going to make it as simple for guys as possible. You can always make it fancy, and I’ll give you some tips on how to modify it a little bit. But this is my most basic go-to bone broth recipe. So I’m going to start here with a large crockpot. And I’m just going to make a smaller batch today. He’s told me to make a big batch, but basically, just start with your crockpot, with your slow cooker. And we’re always going to use grass-fed organic pastured bones.
Dr. Pompa:
Very important, grass-fed.
Meredith:
So, so, so important, organic, they can come from a grass-fed cow, pastured chicken, from a wild caught fish carcass. You can use a lot of different bones. And often, variety is awesome too because you’re getting then the benefits of just the different animals. So what’s your favorite bones to use, Dr. Pompa?
Dr. Pompa:
I mean, I love the standard beef bone. I do. I mean, I like it better than chicken. No doubt about it. But I think mixing it up is good. Lamb is a great one. I love lamb. But for some people, it tastes too wild. Buffalo bone stock is amazing. It’s a little fattier. Actually, you’d think opposite because the meat is not that—I guess they hold more marrow in the bone.
So arguably, you’re going to get some different qualities of health from that over stock. I like to mix it up, but beef is my favorite. I have to ask you this. Where do you get the bones? I mean, sometimes these grass-fed bones are hard to find.
Meredith:
Right, and I’m glad you asked. So we have them in our store here in Pittsburgh, Revelation Health, in the freezer. We just keep a couple pound bags in the freezer. And they’re from just a little dairy farm. It’s called Swiss Villa, in Eastern Pennsylvania. They’re 100% grass-fed bones from healthy, happy cows, and it’s really delicious. I’ve used these bones for quite a few fasts, and you can get them here in our store in Pittsburgh. You can order them online, but if you’re in the area, you can stop by and you can get them, or with your -inaudible- at the office. So we’ve got the bones in the crockpot, and you can see…
Dr. Pompa:
Wasn’t there the website, grassfedbones.com?
Meredith:
Yes. Yes. You can get bones from there, as well. Yeah, it’s grassfedbones.com.
Dr. Pompa:
Local farmers, you can go and try to find bones at local farmers, but here’s the thing. Every farmer says, “Oh, my cows are grass-fed,” yeah, because they ate grass at one point. A hundred percent grass-fed, how are they finished? Because many, they raise them on grass, but then they load them up with grain in the end. We don’t want that affecting that good bone marrow, throwing off those fats. And we definitely don’t want them eating grain that was sprayed with glyphosate, which causes leaky gut. So we absolutely have to be diligent about making sure it’s 100% grass-fed bones.
And sometimes Whole Foods has them. Other health food stores can have them. So I just want to give people a lot of different tips because sometimes finding them can be a challenge. Grassfedbones.com, start there. Start at your local farmers. Go ahead.
Meredith:
Otherwise, local butcher, yes, and just to tell you this. I’m going to start putting this together too. Is there—so what if someone can’t get access to 100% grass-fed bones, or can only get the grass-fed prefinished? Is it worth doing the fast? Will they still get some benefits?
Dr. Pompa:
No, listen, I would make sure you have 100% grass-fed. I mean, that’s me. I wouldn’t do it otherwise. Well, tell them about if you don’t—if you’re not a cook. If you’re someone like Dr. Pompa who’s like, “Man, I don’t want and I don’t have time to do this.” Meredith, is there a—we have a link on our website. And I’ll tell you. This guy, he’s a chef. He makes the best darn stock.
Now, Meredith, I’m not knocking what you’re making there, but he’s a really good cook that was definitely better than mine. Tell them what that link is. They can order it, and it comes to your door. And it’s amazing stuff. Tell them.
Meredith:
Yeah. And although, this is so easy, and I’ll finish up here with this recipe, but if you go to D-R-pompa.com, drpompa.com, there’s a Services tab at the top. And if you hover over the Services tab, a drop down, and then you go up here. And it will say Bone Broth Delivery, and you can click on that link. You can get a 5% off coupon, and you can then access this 100% grass-fed, 100% organic bone broth from this company. It’s called Au Bon Broth.
And their broth, I have not tasted it myself. Right, Dr. Pompa, you said it’s absolutely delicious. They deliver it straight to your door. You can get really large quantities of it too. If you’re interested in doing a fast and really consuming a lot of broth for a longer period of time, you can order it. So you can do it online, and yeah, and that link is on drpompa.com.
Dr. Pompa:
All right, go ahead. Finish.
Meredith:
Awesome, so we got the—a couple pounds of bone broth or the grass-fed bones in here. Sometimes, if I’m making a big pot of it, I like to use maybe 3 or 4 pounds. But I’m just starting off at with about 2 pounds here just to make a small batch. Next, I’m going to put in some raw apple cider vinegar, and I like the Braggs’s brand. You can get this so many places now. Whole Foods has it. And we add in the cider vinegar to demineralize the bones. It helps to breakdown the bones so the minerals can be released into the broth. So when you consume that product, you’re getting the valuable minerals in the broth, which is really important component of it. So I’m going to add a nice splash of this cider vinegar into the broth, all righty.
Then next, add in the all-important sea salt. So I like to use Pink Himalayan Sea Salt. A lot of different trace minerals in it. Once again, I add the minerals into the broth to consume. We’re very, very deficient in minerals these days, most of us, because our soils are so depleted and so on. So getting as many mineral rich foods and broth like this in your diet as you can, it’s going to be beneficial for your bones as well so adding in a nice amount of sea salt here. Once again, this recipe is on D-R-pompa.com too, this basic slow cooker broth recipe. So that is ingredient number three.
Then lastly, ingredient number four. I told you four ingredients, super simple. Add a little reverse osmosis water here that I’m going to pour it into the crockpot, and basically, you just want to cover up the bones. That’s about how much water you could add into it. So if you’re making a larger crockpot amount like this, then you would just want to go up about an inch and a half, 2 inches from the lid of the crockpot. You just want to have all the bones fully covered in there with the apple cider vinegar and the sea salt. And then, basically, it is so easy. You put the lid on. Turn the slow cooker onto the low setting, and let it cook for about 24 hours. And then you will open up the lid, and have a steaming hot bone broth that you can put in a mug and consume for four days, like you talked about.
So when you’re fasting, ideally you want to consume as much broth as you can during these days because you’re just going to get in more nutrition the more broth you consume. So and as the fast goes on too, if you’re just going to fast for four days at a time, you’ll probably consume a good amount of the broth each day. So after the first day and you’ve consumed a good amount of broth, then just simply refill it with more water, and just keep adding water. As well as more vinegar and sea salt to the broth to maintain the flavor. And after a couple of days too, especially if you’re doing a longer fast, you want to add in some more bones to keep the broth really rich in gelatin, and vitamins, and minerals, and collagen, and just to really maintain its strength and richness for you to be getting the benefits. But that’s pretty much it. It is so basic.
Dr. Pompa:
So you don’t have to start over. That will sit there, and you can do it on your stove too. Just keeping it on simmer, right, if you don’t have a cooker like that. And it’s there for four or five days. You’re adding more bones and adding more water. You don’t have to add bones every day, but what, every third day maybe?
Meredith:
It’s every third day or so. Even second day, depending on how strong you want the broth to be but just adding them in. Adding a little more salt for flavor and apple cider vinegar is great too. And I like to add in some seaweeds too so another way to get iodine and some other trace minerals in our diet. I like to add some gulf seaweed, nori is great, kombu, wakame, those are some of my favorite seaweeds to add in as well to really just upgrade your broth. And I also have the collagen and the gelatin products we talked about last week too. But from the grass-fed cows here, we have the Collagen Hydrolysate and then the Gelatin. And I add these into my broth as well. Just throw them right in.
The collagen is cold water soluble, so that mixes in, and you can’t even tell. The gelatin becomes gelatinous. It’s hot water soluble. So I don’t mind a little gelatinousness in my broth when I consume it because the gelatin has so many gut healing benefits, and then the collagen is great for joint and skin support too. So adding these two products into your broth can really upgrade it as well. And if you wanted to make a more flavorful broth too, maybe not so much for fasting purposes, you can add in vegetables: onions, carrots, celery. All of those different delicious vegetables to really add—improve the flavor too. And sometimes people…
Dr. Pompa:
Let me make a point there.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
If you’re doing the -inaudible-, do not add the onions and the garlic because that would add fiber that would feed the bacteria.
Meredith:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
Just the salt, you can put some powders in. Maybe some—a little bit of the garlic powder typically doesn’t send people over, but we don’t want to put fiber in the mixture there.
Meredith:
Right, and it would have sugar in it too. The onions, the garlic here, we don’t always think about them having sugar, but they have natural sugars that would feed the bad bacteria if you’re trying to starve it all down.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. But for the average person doing a stock fast, absolutely, it’s not a problem.
Meredith:
Yeah, awesome, and just another side note too, sometimes people have challenges with the fattiness of the broth.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, we say that before.
Meredith:
We’re into fat here. We love fat and good fat, though. Not the bad fat. But if you’re making a broth, and you’re just finding that it’s a little bit too fatty to consume, you can scrape the fat off of the top of the surface of the broth. But don’t throw it away. Reserve it. Put it in a little jar. Stick it in your fridge. You can use it for sautéing vegetables, for practically anything after the fast.
So don’t throw that fat away, especially since it’s going to be from healthy grass-fed animals. You want to keep that fat. But just, if you can’t quite handle it during the fast, just save it for afterwards. And removing the meaty bits too so you’re just consuming that broth can mean working into the gut, so it doesn’t have to digest that meat while you’re actually doing the fast.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, all right, well, that’s awesome. And I know they learned a lot, and this is going to help educate a lot of people in this area for sure. And combining—you can consume this stuff any time without a fast, right? I mean, just every whatever, weekly, monthly, daily. I mean, I have many, many clients who just have a nice cup or so of stock daily to help heal their gut and move it along. But periodically, utilizing it within an intermittent fast, it’s magic. It’s ancient healing, and it works. It absolutely works.
So grandma was stinking right. No wonder for thousands of years we have utilized this type of healing. Getting back to it is no doubt magic. So Meredith, thank you so much as always.
Meredith:
Thank you.
Dr. Pompa:
You are such a help in these areas. And hey, in the future, we came up with a few other shows, right? We’re going to do one on the Whey Water fasting.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Completely different benefits and often times, people utilize both of these types of fasts. So you know what? Maybe we go back to back, right? I don’t know if we can get you back on next week’s show, but I think that would be a great show for next week. That way, I know—what episode is this, 70?
Meredith:
Oh, gosh. I think maybe 77, 78? I have to check on that.
Dr. Pompa:
Wait, 77 was the smoothie.
Meredith:
Okay, so it’s 78 then.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, 77, this is s78. So let’s do Episode 79. Stay tuned next week for Whey Water fasting. So Meredith will hold me to that, and we’ll do that. So we’ll bring the queen of the fast there back, and we’ll do it. Okay, we’ll see you on next week’s show, Episode 79, and we’re going to do Whey Water fasting. But I know this made a difference. Thank you, Meredith.
Meredith:
Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Dr. Pompa.
Dr. Pompa:
Uh-huh. Bye-bye.
Meredith:
Bye.
