How to Stay Young Forever

(Got your attention there, didn’t I?)

Last weekend over dinner with a book group I belong to, I casually mentioned to a good friend that I had made 5 or 6 quarts of chicken broth from the carcass of a chicken she’d shared with me earlier in the week.

“You got five quarts of broth from the meager amount of meat on that carcass?” she said in disbelief.

“Well,” I said, “it’s not really the meat that makes the broth.”  And, after pausing to ask if anyone was a serious vegetarian, or squeamish, I said, “It’s the cartilage.”

An 81-year-old gentleman of our acquaintance, who looks at least 15 younger than he is, an active theatre director and actor, said, “Oh, yes!” and rattled off what was, in essence, my chicken broth recipe.  You put the chicken carcass in a pot, add a tablespoon of vinegar, some salt, whatever vegetables aren’t quite fit to eat but are too good to throw away, and cover it with water.   Simmer until the cartilage around the leg bones is gone, daddy, gone.  Strain and refrigerate or freeze.

I recalled how shocked I had been when I learned his real age, and resolved to eat chicken broth every night forever. 

I make mine in my slow cooker overnight  - I’m sure the Fire Department thinks this is unsafe, but I am also sure that it is safer than leaving it on my gas stove.  If you’re really patient or frugal, you can rescue the little bits of meat and use them in soup.

The resulting broth is full of glucosamine and chondroitin, two compounds that people pay a lot of money for to ensure joint health.  And you get them for free, from something that most people throw out.  The presence of these two substances surely helps explain how my director friend has continued his career well past the age when most people retire.  Directing is a very active profession; in spite of what you see on TV, the director does not just sit in a canvas chair all day.  I was once in a play where the director broke her ankle, and a new director had to be brought in, because the previous director’s doctor didn’t want her hopping around on the stage.  Surely my friend’s joints are more supple than the average 81-year-old’s at least in part because of his magic broth.

If made with vinegar or lemon juice or another acid, the broth is also rich in all the minerals that make up bone - calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, boron, silicon … and in exactly the same proportions in which they occur in bone.  There probably isn’t a supplement out there that is so well balanced.  Again, you get them for free from something that most people throw out.

And, of course, homemade chicken broth is delicious, far richer, tastier, and silkier than what you buy in a can.  Migraineurs must be wary of canned chicken broth, which usually contains MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, or “natural flavors” that probably include glutamate.

Next time you roast a chicken, try it out!