Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Not for the squeamish!


At exactly the same time that my husband was limping around waiting for a knee replacement operation earlier this year, I was serendipitously commissioned to illustrate a book called “Nourishing Broth” by Sally Fallon Morell, “the definitive cookbook that can help you treat symptoms of autoimmune disorders, infectious diseases, digestive problems and other chronic ailments”.

It made fascinating reading and was definitely a first for me as far as painting gristle is concerned!

“Most people know cartilage as gristle. It’s the blob on the bone of a T-bone steak, the globs on chicken drumsticks”. 


I learnt all about boiling up bones for minerals, which in turn keep our own bones strong, marrow, which is important for stem cell regeneration and gelatin which is obtained from boiling up skin, cartilage, tendons, and ligaments. (Hmm, not your average cookbook ingredients, but worth reading on I assure you).  
I now understand that gelatin provides amino acids that the body needs to make connective tissue, i.e. all the bits that hold the body together. Perfect for an arthritic knee! 


At the risk of sounding like a school text book I even got to draw pretty pictures of glycoproteins and connective tissues.


This is all very pertinent, as the pigs are booked to go to the abattoir on Thursday and I’m busy making important decisions as to how I’d like them butchered and do I want the trotters and heads? 
Well, if only for the sake of a post operative knee I think I should boil up anything and everything!

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