Chicken Meat Stock- A Step By Step GAPS Lesson

Meat stock is vital to healing the damaged gut, sealing the microbiome for foundation rebuilding. Cooking bone broth, instead of meat stock, will prolong your healing time if have advanced pathogenic gut damage.

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According to GAPS founder, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride chicken meat stock is one of the most gentle options for a sensitive system. She says, “Chicken stock is particularly gentle on the stomach and is very good to start with. The gelatinous soft tissues around the bones and the bone marrow provide some of the best healing remedies for the gut lining and the immune system; your patient needs to consume them with every meal,” (page 145)

If the digestive system is greatly damaged the client needs the cleanest source of chicken. The best choice is a chicken raised on grass, bugs and worms, free ranging in an open yard. If that option is not available sourcing an organic chicken, which has “access to the outdoors” and has been fed organic feed is the next best option. Organic chickens are usually fed organic grains, even though chickens are omnivore foragers. Using Organic Chicken from Costco is a good source.

If you’re eating a chicken that has eaten antibiotics, you’re eating antibiotics. Eating a chicken that says, “contains up to 17% of a solution of water, less than 2% solution of…” is injected with water so that the chicken weighs more allowing for more profit by the pound. The less than 2% solution is often potato starch, maltodextrin (which is usually derived from GMO corn), autolyzed yeast extract, torula yeast, caramelized sugar, citric acid, cream of tartar, expeller pressed canola oil, flavors, food starch, rice flour, sugar or yeast extract -all of which feed pathogens in the gut. Chickens that contain these ingredients should not be used.

Cutting the chicken up is not vital to healing but assists in adding more nutrient healing enzymes to the tract. Sometimes, while on GAPS, a mom needs to choose what she does in the kitchen due to time. If this is the case cutting the chicken is not mandatory for healing, however, it is highly beneficial. Cut the chicken at the joints with a sharp knife or kitchen scissors like these. This can be done easily by pulling the leg or wing out and breaking it back, showing you the joint.

Do this for each leg and each wing, at each joint. Opening the joints allow better accessibility to the vital nutrition contained in the joints and connective tissues. Meat stock made from chicken is high in the amino acids proline and glycine, bioten, collagen, elastin, glucosamine and gelatin. These are the elements that feed the enterocytes, the building blocks of the gut lining.

Cutting the bones half way through the leg opens access to the marrow. Cut the bird down the breast bone and back bone. This step is not vital but it opens up the availability to further nutrition. Place the chicken pieces in a stainless steel pot, like this one, placing them tight around each other like a puzzle to fit the pot. If possible have all the chicken pieces cover one layer so the stock is not diluted with too much water. Cover the chicken with filtered water one finger width above the meat. If you have chicken feet and/or heads, adding them to the stock will greatly increase the healing aspects. This is a hard fact to swallow and grosses many people out – don’t worry about it, just do what you can.Add 1 tablespoon of mineral salt, like this one, 2-3 bay leaves, crushed peppercorns and 2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, with the mother. Allow the pot to rest for 20-30 minutes. Turn the heat on high and bring to a rolling boil. Just before the boil scoop off the foam that has risen to the top. Scooping the foam scoobage will give you a noticeably better tasting stock, some say this is the bones cleaning themselves. By the time you finish skimming the pot should be at a rolling boil. 

Cover and turn the heat down to a low simmer, with slight bubble activity for 1.5-2 hours. If you do not cover the pot the stock will evaporate and you will lose a great portion of your stock. After cooking, remove the chicken, bay leaves and scoop out the peppercorns (which are difficult to digest).  Allow the chicken to cool for a few minutes, then remove the skin and add it back to the stock pot. With a stick blender mix the skin into the stock until fully combined. This aspect will add valuable nutrition to the stock, it will also make the stock taste more like a cream soup. “We need all of the natural fats in natural foods, and saturated and monounsaturated fats need to be the largest part of our fat intake,” Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride says (page 259).

She further says, “Do not take fat out of the stock, it is important for your GAPS patient to consume the fat together with the stock.” (page 178)

Once the skin is blended back in, you can ladle your hot stock into mason jars, the size of your choice, and immediately put on the lids. As the jars cool, they will pop down, sealing themselves slightly. This type of sealing will not make your stock shelf stable but will allow it to remain in the refrigerator a bit longer. The length of time your stock is good in the refrigerator depends on the person and the depth of gut damage. The most severe cases need to be consuming the freshest meat stock possible. These people generally say they have problems with histamine foods. If this is the case, only keep in the refrigerator food for two days, the rest should be stored in the freezer or made new. 

Meat stock will naturally feed the amines in the tract, including the amine histidine, which releases histamine. If you are having histamine issues, McBride says it is important to consume many small cups of stock throughout the day, much like you would drink a glass of tea. If histamine issues are a problem, do not reheat the soup for a very long time as it cooks out the healing enzymes that calm the mast cells that cause the histamine issue. Meat stock should not be reheated for more than 30 minutes.

The average healing gut will tolerate stock that has been kept in the refrigerator a week. Someone with light gut damage can handle stock that has been in the freezer for two weeks. Stock in freezer safe mason jars, filled 3/4 full, with a loose lid, freezes well. The breakage potential of mason jars in the freezer is high for many people. For this reason, it is wise to allow your jars to cool in the refrigerator, then transfer it to another container that is freezer safe. Freezing in ziptop bags is OK as BPAs  (bisphenol a) have been reported to leach in acid conditions as well as conditions where heat is present. Cooled stock has not been tested in any published reports showing the content of either and the potential BPA content.

Once you have your stock in jars, it is easy to pull a jar out of the refrigerator, add your desired meat and vegetables and enjoy!

Remove the meat from the carcass while the carcass is still warm. Some people add all the chicken meat back into the stock pot for chicken soup, others save half of it and use it for other dishes so the soup is not so chicken heavy. 

For GAPS stage 1 or 2 add chopped carrots (if tolerated) onion, garlic and peas, or any other Stage 1 or 2 approved vegetable. Cook for 25 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Add in the chicken meat and enjoy! Chicken stock is the most used base for soups. The possibilities for soup options are endless.

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*Nourishing Plot is written by Becky Plotner, ND, traditional naturopath, GAPS who sees clients in Rossville, Georgia. Since her son was delivered from the effects of autism (Asperger’s syndrome), ADHD, bipolar disorder/manic depression, hypoglycemia and dyslexia through food she continued her education specializing in Leaky Gut and parasitology through Duke University, finishing with distinction. This is not a news article published by a paper trying to make money. This blog is put out by a mom who sees first hand the effects of nourishing food vs food-ish items. No company pays her for writing these blogs, she considers this a form of missionary work. It is her desire to scream it from the rooftops so that others don’t suffer from the damaging effect of today’s “food”.