Name: My ultimate anti-inflammatory bone broth for gut health and immunity
Uploaded: 2025-11-18T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 8 min 59 s
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If you're feeling run-down or you find yourself always fighting off a cold, you need to try this anti-inflammatory broth.

It's fantastic for your gut, supports your immune system and makes you feel amazing.

You can prep it ahead, freeze it and turn it into nourishing meals in just a few minutes.

When I was working as a doctor in A&E, I was constantly surrounded by people with coughs and infections,

and so I would make this broth every single week to stop me from getting sick.

And honestly, it's one of the easiest health habits that I still practice to this day.

There's a lot of hype online about bone broths and whilst it's not a cure-all, I do think early research is showing some benefits.

Now, it might be because of the collagen that you find in bone broth.

It could be certain amino acids that you find because you're slowly cooking out the bones.

It might even be the anti-inflammatory spices that you tend to put into bone broth,

which is why you find some papers that show gut health benefits, even fat loss benefits, as well as reductions in inflammation markers that we measure in the blood.

You can buy really good bone broth these days in stores and there are a couple of things that I think you should be looking out for.

Organic is really important to me when it comes to animal products, so I always opt for organic and grass fed where I can look for ones that don't have added salt.

So you can be in charge of how much seasoning you're putting in.

Make sure that you recognize all the ingredients on the back.

They shouldn't have emulsifiers or additives. They should just be whole spices and vegetables.

So I'm trying to reduce plastic as much as physically possible.

So optimum for those that are prepared and bottled in glass jars is better than plastic.

If you're short on time, these are a really good option.

But if you're like me, I love the flavor of freshly made broth, so I make it myself using super simple ingredients.

I've got a carcass that I've broken down from a good quality chicken that I bought from the butchers yesterday.

I'm going to add some spices, bay leaf, apple cider vinegar, parsley, salt, black peppercorns.

I'm going to slowly cook this for a few hours.

You can add some more spices, but later on, I'm going to show you my sipping broth, which is super punchy.

Then I just bring this up to a simmer and keep it at that level for around three to four hours.

Some people like to simmer their broth for over 24 hours.

I personally can't tell the difference, so I think three to four hours is a good compromise.

You'll notice at the start of cooking, about 30 minutes, when everything's come up to temperature,

you're going to have these little bubbles that appear at the surface.

They're just basically clumps of protein.

And you want to just gently scoop these out, making sure not to take out your spices.

And that way you're left with a delicious clear broth.

You can do this during the process of cooking the broth at regular intervals.

But generally, most of the impurities are removed in the first hour of cooking.

After a few hours, you're going to get a really nutrient dense broth.

It's going to have a small amount of collagen, a bit of protein.

It's also going to have a ton of micronutrients in as well, like magnesium, calcium and zinc.

Plus some amino acids like glycine and arginine.

These are really interesting because they appear to support the gut lining, strengthening that gut barrier.

Now, this is early research, so we can't say for sure, but I personally anecdotally swear by it.

And a special hack is to use these handy ice molds where you can pop them out in ready-to-heat portions.

That way I've always got some bone broth ready to go.

Whenever I feel a cold coming on, I go straight to my fridge or fridge freezer stash of the base bone broth.

But I also make it more anti-inflammatory with the inclusion of specific spices.

It's packed with shagols and gingerols and these are uniquely anti-inflammatory.

There have been shown in some studies to improve pain and pyrexia, fever.

And it's something that I always go to whenever I feel a cold coming up.

but fresh has slightly different compounds in and I tend to go for fresh because I just prefer the fish flavor.

By weight, they are one of the richest sources of polyphenols.

Now, it's not just about the total number of polyphenols because olive oil, for example, typically has 250mg of polyphenols per liter.

That doesn't mean olive oil is not as good as cloves.

They contain different compounds and the star compound in clove which may lead to the anti-inflammatory pain-relieving effects is eugenol.

So it can impact microbes and help shape a favorable gut microbiota that could also be good for colds and viruses and keeping you generally healthy.

Talking of polyphenols, cinnamon is another fantastic source of unique polyphenols.

It's isolated from the bark of cinnamon trees, which is why it kind of looks like a bark because it is.

It's been linked to things like lower sugar levels, better metabolic control and even lower levels of inflammation as well.

It's one of those all-rounders that I try and use as often as possible in regular cooking and definitely in my anti-inflammatory broth.

I like my broth fiery which is why I add a little bit of green chili.

Now you don't need to use fresh green chili.

You can avoid using chili if you don't like the heat.

One of the best impacts of chili come from a compound called capsaicin.

Now capsicin is super interesting, not just because of its anti-inflammatory effect,

but it also has a numbing and mild pain-relieving effect as well.

I would avoid chili if you are sensitive to things like fermentable foods, if you have IBS or if you have reflux.

Now garlic is sort of like the teacher's pet, the total overachiever in the classroom of spices.

Many of them can be derived from the sulfur containing compounds, things like allicin.

But there are also some metabolites like ajoene and tri-aryl disulfide, that also have anti-inflammatory effects.

It's a classic for colds and it's really encouraging that there is early research that shows that garlic can actually reduce cold symptoms.

Crushing it releases some of those sulfur containing compounds even more so.

So you'll notice that we've actually lightly crushed the garlic before we add it to the broth.

So when I'm making my broth, garlic is one of those non negotiable.

The other spices that I'm going to add have digestion benefits.

So cumin is really well known to have carnitive effects, so it eases digestion.

It's one of the reasons why in Indian cooking, you tend to find things like fennel seeds and cumin mixed with pulses and cooked in with those,

because it does aid the digestion of some of the fibrous materials.

Cardamom has got some unique polyphenols that again have those digestive benefits and are anti inflammatory.