Prenatal Hand Expression and Collection
Prenatal hand expression and colostrum collection seems to be a hot topic on “pregnant social media”. Most of my prenatal clients come to me with some background knowledge about colostrum collection and a desire to learn more.
If this were a lactation visit and we were looking at each other, I would flap my hands in the air and talk about how our hands were the original pumps. I truly believe every lactating person needs to have the skill of hand expression in their repertoire. The health of lactating breasts is dependent on the removal of milk and at times, our hands are the best tools available to ensure milk removal. “Low tech and high touch” is the heart of hand expression and I find pregnancy the perfect low-key time to begin practicing the essential skill of hand expression.
This blog is always handwritten from my perspective and my clinical experiences — no AI slop found here!
Prenatal hand expression and colostrum collection seems to be a hot topic on “pregnant social media”. Most of my prenatal clients come to me with some background knowledge about colostrum collection and a desire to learn more.
If this were a lactation visit and we were looking at each other, I would flap my hands in the air and talk about how our hands were the original pumps. I truly believe every lactating person needs to have the skill of hand expression in their repertoire. The health of lactating breasts is dependent on the removal of milk and at times, our hands are the best tools available to ensure milk removal. “Low tech and high touch” is the heart of hand expression and I find pregnancy the perfect low-key time to begin practicing the essential skill of hand expression.
Prenatal Hand Expression Logistics
I recommend beginning to get to know your new pregnant breasts in the shower. The shower is a perfect time to develop your hands-on touch and your hand expression skills. In the shower, there is no pressure to collect colostrum or to even to actually express colostrum. Shower goals are to feel comfortable touching your breasts, learning the level of pressure that is comfortable without bruising or leaving your breasts feeling tender, and to develop your hand expression techniques.
Once you are feeling more confident from your shower experimentation, I suggest moving your hand expression trials to dry land. At this juncture, we celebrate every drop and every bead of moisture. As you develop your touch and technique, you will likely begin to observe drops of clear or yellow colostrum on your nipples.
If your goal is to save colostrum to freeze for future use, this is time to get out a clean spoon or a clean tiny cup (like a shot glass) to collect your drops of colostrum. This might require a second set of hands so don’t be shy to ask for your partner’s help to hold a spoon near your nipple and gently collect the drops of colostrum.
The next step is to pull out the 1mm syringes you have already ordered from Amazon or a medical supply company. These tiny capped syringes are low price and buying in bulk (usually about $10 for pack of 100 syringes) will ensure you have more than enough for your colostrum collection and extras to pass to a pregnant friend any that you don’t use. Just slurp up our expressed colostrum into your tiny syringe, cap it and put it in a Ziploc bag to safely store in your freezer.
My favorite hand expression online resources for learning this important skill:
Prenatal Hand Expression FAQ’s
When should I begin prenatal hand expression?
I typically recommend practicing hand expression around weeks 35-38 of pregnancy.
Will prenatal hand expression make labor begin?
Hand expression is far gentler than nursing a toddler through your pregnancy and that is a normal event that rarely triggers labor for most women. If hand expression triggers any twinges, contractions or uncomfy feelings, I suggest to stop hand expression because babies need to cook for every possible day!
How often should I practice prenatal hand expression?
Your breasts are yours! How often do you want to practice? Once a day, twice a day, once a week, just one time and never again. The choice is yours!
Will I express all of my colostrum and my baby won’t get any after birth?
No! Your body has been internally producing colostrum since around 16 weeks of pregnancy. During pregnancy, the hormone progesterone is very high because it is busy growing your baby. As soon as your placenta is born, your milk making hormone, prolactin, kicks in to begin the shift from colostrum to mature milk. It is impossible to express all of your colostrum!
What if I’m not able to hand express colostrum? Does that mean I won’t make milk for my baby?
No! I suspect if you are unable to hand express any colostrum at all, your technique probably isn’t quite right
What do I do with the colostrum I collect in my freezer?
I suggest bringing your bag of frozen colostrum syringes to the hospital or birth center for your baby’s birth (even easier for a homebirth!). My philosophy is that the more colostrum your baby can drink in the very earliest days after birth, the bettter! If your baby is latching and drinking colostrum straight from the tap, you can still give your baby tiny syringes of colostrum in between feeds. If latching is a struggle, you will need to protect your milk supply through hand expression and pumping (a different topic for a different post) but you can also give your baby some of your expressed colostrum. Talk to your L&D nurses and your midwife for their suggestions!
1. A Brief History of Antenatal Colostrum Expression, and Where to From Here.
The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 2025. O'Sullivan TA, Ihlein CN.Review
Lancet. 2017. Forster DA, Moorhead AM, Jacobs SE, et al.RCT
Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing : JOGNN. 2021. Juntereal NA, Spatz DL.
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I provide clinical lactation care locally in Tallahassee, Florida and via my secure telehealth portal from my screen to yours. I offer holistic lactation care to you and your baby through the lens of health and wellness with a focus on creating ease and sustainability to reduce stress and bring more joy into raising your little one!
You can learn more about more about my services and in-network insurance benefits on my website. Online booking is available HERE! Questions or comments? Please EMAIL me!
Liver Pate aka Your Baby’s New Favorite Food
Liver is a traditional food across time and culture due to its powerful nutritional profile, especially regarding important minerals and micronutrients. Liver is particularly high in vitamin A, iron, vitamin B12, folate, zinc and selenium.
In a nutshell, liver is like a perfect multivitamin because of it’s bioavailability, meaning our bodies can easily absorb and put to use liver’s many nutrients.
This blog is always handwritten from my perspective and my clinical experiences — no AI slop found here!
Liver is a traditional food across time and culture due to its powerful nutritional profile, especially regarding important minerals and micronutrients. Liver is particularly high in vitamin A, iron, vitamin B12, folate, zinc and selenium.
In a nutshell, liver is like a perfect multivitamin because of it’s bioavailability, meaning our bodies can easily absorb and put to use liver’s many nutrients.
Parents are often warmed about vitamin A toxicity when offering liver to their infants and young children. Research shows that liver related vitamin A toxicity occurs in tandem with other forms of vitamin A supplementation from fortified milk and multivitamins.
I suggest offering frequent small servings of liver pate (pa-tay) to infants and toddlers to maximize their willingness to eat strong flavors and to gain the known health benefits of liver. Liver pate is especially well suited for “pre-loaded spoons” to help teach early eaters how to self-feed with spoons. Scoop pate on a spoon and hand it over to your baby so they can eat a deeply nourishing food and develop their feeding skills at the same time.
How to Make Liver Pate:
Simmer liver (chicken, beef, lamb, etc.) in water or meat stock until reaching an internal temperature of 160 degrees. There is no need to trim connective tissues or fatty bits.
Allow liver to cool.
Add enough cooking liquid to your high-powered blender to blend the liver into a smooth pate. I love my Vitamix!
Blend in added fat. You really can’t add too much! Pate is a great opportunity for increase your little one’s intake of tallow, coconut oil, lard, duck fat, butter, ghee, etc. Our brains are fatty organs and high quality fats are brain foods!
Freeze small servings in a silicon muffin tin and store in a ziploc bag for easy thawing on the stove top or overnight in the fridge
1. 'Mealthy' Food: Meat as a Healthy and Valuable Source of Micronutrients.
Animal : An International Journal of Animal Bioscience. 2007. Nohr D, Biesalski HK.
2. Micronutrients — Assessment, Requirements, Deficiencies, and Interventions.
The New England Journal of Medicine. 2025. Allen LH.
Maternal & Child Nutrition. 2020. van Stuijvenberg ME, Schoeman SE, Nel J, le Roux M, Dhansay MA.
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I provide clinical lactation care locally in Tallahassee, Florida and via my secure telehealth portal from my screen to yours. I offer holistic lactation care to you and your baby through the lens of health and wellness with a focus on creating ease and sustainability to reduce stress and bring more joy into raising your little one!
You can learn more about more about my services and in-network insurance benefits on my website. Online booking is available HERE! Questions or comments? Please EMAIL me!
Benefits of a Prenatal Lactation Visit (or two)
One-on-one prenatal lactation visits have a different focus. In addition to general breastfeeding education, we review your medical history that could impact your milk supply and discuss your birth plans because birth and breastfeeding go hand in hand. I make clinical recommendations based on you and your baby’s needs that simply cannot happen within the setting of a group class.
This blog is always handwritten from my perspective and my clinical experiences — no AI slop found here!
I am a huge fan of prenatal breastfeeding education to support meeting your infant breastfeeding goals from the very beginning! Group classes that teach breastfeeding education can be very helpful in a number of ways — simply sitting with other pregnant parents is a bonding and community building experience. I also love group classes because we learn from each other and bring our unique experiences, values, and ideals to the table. When I teach group breastfeeding classes, I encourage lots of conversation and social support in addition to learning practical breastfeeding information.
However, one-on-one prenatal lactation visits have a different focus. In addition to general breastfeeding education, we review your medical history that could impact your milk supply and discuss your birth plans because birth and breastfeeding go hand in hand. I make clinical recommendations based on you and your baby’s needs that simply cannot happen within the setting of a group class.
Many of my prenatal lactation visits are second time mothers whose first breastfeeding experience did not go as they hoped. Now they are pregnant with a second baby, armed with more information and fully aware that they need support and skilled care to help them meet their goals. We thoroughly disentangled their first baby’s birth and feeding history and her milk supply history in order to determine what went right, what went wrong and what could have been done differently. This can be an emotional conversation but I find it essential to understand the past in order to make new plans for the future. This reflective conversational also helps provide foundational recommendations for clinical lactation recommendations and referrals.
In the past, my prenatal visits focused on the big picture of breastfeeding your new baby but in the the past year, I have honed my prenatal visits to focusing on the first few days of your baby’s life. We spend a lot of time discussing normal breastfed infant behavior, how hospitals can help or hinder early breastfeeding, and when to reach out to me for hands-on support. We also discuss prenatal hand expression and colostrum collection and decide together what that might look like for you. I think an added benefit of a prenatal visit is that you and I have already built rapport. That rapport makes it easier to reach out to book your first visit with your baby because you know me, you’ve already been to my clinic, and you know how excited I’m going to be to meet your little one!
I am seeing truly phenomenal results with my prenatal lactation visits. I am seeing mothers with healthy milk supplies, latching babies, solid newborn weight gain, responsive feeding and more than anything — confident mothers who feel prepared to breastfeed and prepared to ask for help when they need it!
In my ideal world, every family will receive at least one prenatal lactation visit because every family deserves the very best start!
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I provide clinical lactation care locally in Tallahassee, Florida and via my secure telehealth portal from my screen to yours. I offer holistic lactation care to you and your baby through the lens of health and wellness with a focus on creating ease and sustainability to reduce stress and bring more joy into raising your little one!
You can learn more about more about my services and in-network insurance benefits on my WEBSITE. Online booking is available HERE! Questions or comments? Please EMAIL me!
FPIES is Scary!
FPIES (Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome) is a non-IGE mediated gastrointestinal food allergy and a relatively new phenomenon within childhood allergic disorders. The hallmark of FPIES is a delayed reaction of 4 to 6 hours after the child eats their offending food, with the primary symptoms of profuse vomiting until dehydration, lethargy, and shock as the ultimate result.
This blog is always handwritten from my perspective and my clinical experiences — no AI slop found here!
FPIES (Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome) is a non-IGE mediated gastrointestinal food allergy and a relatively new phenomenon within childhood allergic disorders. The hallmark of FPIES is a delayed reaction of 4 to 6 hours after the child eats their offending food, with the primary symptoms of profuse vomiting until dehydration, lethargy, and shock as the ultimate result. Many families take their little ones to the ER or call 911 as the symptoms progress to the shock phase because this is a terrifying event to witness! Unfortunately, FPIES can be difficult to diagnose due to confusion with stomach bugs, food poisoning and poor education about FPIES within the medical profession. Once diagnosis occurs, Zofran is typically prescribed in case of accidental ingestion and parents are told to avoid giving their child known triggers. Another tricky aspect of FPIES is that many families report their child had previously eaten the food many times without any issues…..….and……....then……..FPIES!
Earliest FPIES reactions typically occur around 6 months of age in the same time frame of early introductions to solid foods, although research shows it often takes up to 2 months to receive an official diagnosis after the first reaction. Because “vomit to shock” is traumatizing for the entire family, there is typically a lot of fear about continuing to introduce new foods and exposing little ones to possible new FPIES triggers. Research states that most infants diagnosed with FPIES only have one trigger food but lived experience shows that many children have more than one trigger, often with variable symptoms that don’t also mimic classic vomit to shock. “Atypical FPIES” is typically associated with diarrhea, eczema, swelling of the mouth and airway, etc. with ingestion of trigger foods, in addition to at least one classic FPIES trigger. Some breastfed infants are reactive to triggers through their mother’s milk and some are not.
FPIES is hard, yall. It is so different from case to case and there is not a standard protocol to safely reintroduce trigger foods (and avoid new triggers) so parents often receive mixed messages from care providers about moving forward with solids.
Mixed messages typically follow this pattern —— Follow this food list. Most kids only have one trigger so don’t worry about introducing new solids. Follow this introduction ladder. Avoid triggers for 6 months. Avoid triggers until 2 years old. Avoid triggers until 3 years old. Don’t worry because every child outgrows their triggers by 3 years old (spoiler - not true!) Wait to see what happens with accidental exposure. Give new foods 15x to prove there is no reaction. Give new foods every single day to avoid reactions.
PURE CONFUSION for so many families!
It is so common to live in fear and desire to limit your little one’s. exposure to new food with FPIES - especially if you feel like you are navigating this on your own with little support from your child’s doctors or if the support they provide is not in line with your food values.
As an IBCLC focused on holistic lactation care, I am uniquely positioned to support you and your FPIES baby into healing their gut with gentle introduction of nourishing solids to support their growth and development.
You are not alone. I am here to help!
1. Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome.
2.Clinical Features and Resolution of Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome: 10-Year Experience.
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2014. Caubet JC, Ford LS, Sickles L, et al.
3.Different Patterns of Foods Triggering FPIES in Germany.
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. In Practice. 2022. Lange L, Gernert S, Berger M, et al.
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I provide clinical lactation care locally in Tallahassee, Florida and via my secure telehealth portal from my screen to yours. I offer holistic lactation care to you and your baby through the lens of health and wellness with a focus on creating ease and sustainability to reduce stress and bring more joy into raising your little one!
You can learn more about more about my services and in-network insurance benefits on my WEBSITE. Online booking is available HERE! Questions or comments? Please EMAIL me!
A Holistic Approach for FPIAP Healing
Up to 60% of FPIAP cases (food protein-induced allergic proctocolitis) occur in breastfed infants. With symptoms like visible blood and mucous in otherwise healthy infants, many breastfeeding parents are unfortunately advised to wean from the breast and provide hypoallergenic formula to their babies to mitigate FPIAP symptoms.
This blog is always handwritten from my perspective and my clinical experiences — no AI slop found here!
Did you know the majority of FPIAP diagnoses are in breastfed infants?
Up to 60% of FPIAP cases (food protein-induced allergic proctocolitis) occur in breastfed infants. With symptoms like visible blood and mucous in otherwise healthy infants, many breastfeeding parents are unfortunately advised to wean from the breast and provide hypoallergenic formula to their babies to mitigate FPIAP symptoms.
What about the mothers who have worked so hard to breastfeed their baby through early postpartum challenges?
What about the parents who don’t qualify for WIC and feel a huge financial burden to provide special formula for their infant?
What about the families who value breastmilk and understand that formula can never replicate their breastmilk?
What about families whose babies refuse bottles?
I could list 10 more scenarios why “just give your baby formula” is not good enough for many families after a FPIAP diagnosis. While weaning from the breast and providing formula is a solid option and preferred plan for some families, it’s not the ONLY option available.
Identifying and eliminating your baby’s trigger foods + adding healing measures to your maternal diet/lifestyle is a pathway to success for many babies with FPIAP symptoms like bloody and mucousy stool.
You aren’t crazy for wanting to breastfeed.
You aren’t selfish for wanting to breastfeed.
You aren’t making your child sicker for wanting to breastfeed.
I’m on your team and I support your infant feeding hopes, dreams and goals!
1.. Food Allergy: A Practice Parameter Update-2014.
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2014. Sampson HA, Aceves S, Bock SA, et al.Guideline
2.. Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome and Allergic Proctocolitis.
Allergy and Asthma Proceedings. 2015. Nowak-Węgrzyn A.
3. Diagnosis and Management of Food Protein-Induced Allergic Proctocolitis.
Current Gastroenterology Reports. 2025. Leney M, Kahale F, Martin VM.
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I provide clinical lactation care locally in Tallahassee, Florida and via my secure telehealth portal from my screen to yours. I offer holistic lactation care to you and your baby through the lens of health and wellness with a focus on creating ease and sustainability to reduce stress and bring more joy into raising your little one!
You can learn more about more about my services and in-network insurance benefits on my WEBSITE. Online booking is available HERE! Questions or comments? Please EMAIL me!
Reducing Meat Stock’s Histamine
As discussed in Meat Stock vs. Bone Broth, one benefit of short-cooked meat stock is that it contains dramatically less histamine than long-cooked bone broth. Yet, for some folks, they need to take extra precautions to prevent excess histamine in their meat stock.
This blog is always handwritten from my perspective and my clinical experiences — no AI slop found here!
As discussed in Meat Stock vs. Bone Broth, one benefit of short-cooked meat stock is that it contains dramatically less histamine than long-cooked bone broth. Yet, for some folks, they need to take extra precautions to prevent excess histamine in their meat stock. Excess histamine, gut permeability and low levels of the digestive enzyme DAO work synergistically (with many other factors, of course) to inflame the body and create a hostile environment that can result in symptoms like itchy skin, hives, diarrhea, bloating, sensitivity to the sun, extreme reactions to bug bites, anxiety and depression, to just name a few.
If you are battling with the symptoms listed above, I suggest taking additional steps to reduce your meat stock’s histamine load if you are not seeing improvement while drinking properly prepared meat stock. Most people will find that short-cooking and freezing after cooling is the only histamine mitigation they need but some sensitive folks will need to follow extra precautions. The following is a comprehensive list of ways to further reduce histamine in meat stock:
Cook your meat stock on the stove top rather than using a slow cooker or pressure cooker. This provides more temperature control to ensure your stock is simmering, rather than boiling.
Reduce cooking time even further. Typically, chicken stock calls for 2 hours of simmering and beef stock calls for 3 hours of simmering. Meat stock is “done” when the meat is tender and slides off the bone. Try checking meat tenderness earlier than recommended to see if you can pull your stock off the heat earlier to reduce cooking time.
Cook small batches of meat stock. Smaller batches can require less cooking time and storing leftovers in the fridge is a quick way to increase histamine.
Cool your stock down quickly after removing from the stove. One technique is to fill your sink with ice and place your stock pot directly into the ice to cool. If it’s winter and freezing outside, place your stock pot outside in the snow to cool. Distributing hot meat stock into smaller bowls/pots brings cooling much faster than waiting for a big pot of stock to cool.
After cooling, freeze stock in small portions in the freezer as freezing halts histamine production. Freeze small portions so you can gently heat the exact amount you need on the stove top. If you freeze in glass jars, be sure to leave at least one inch of empty head space to avoid the risk of the freezing stock expanding and breaking your jar. Silicon muffin trays are excellent for very small portions — freeze in the silicon tray and then pop out and store in a ziploc bag.
Do not blend chicken skin into your “cream” as described in Making Meat Stock. Chicken skin is naturally high in histamine. It is fine to include cartilage and gooey connective tissues for increased nutrition and healing though.
Purchase your meat directly from a butcher or farmer who can ensure your meat is as fresh as possible.
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I provide clinical lactation care locally in Tallahassee, Florida and via my secure telehealth portal from my screen to yours. I offer holistic lactation care to you and your baby through the lens of health and wellness with a focus on creating ease and sustainability to reduce stress and bring more joy into raising your little one!
You can learn more about more about my services and in-network insurance benefits on my website. Online booking is available HERE! Questions or comments? Please EMAIL me!
Making Meat Stock
In it’s most simple form, meat stock is a short cooked stock using bony cuts of meat. I will not share a “recipe” as everyone’s needs are unique and there is no one right way to make meat stock. Rather, I will share guidelines and general directions for you to customize to fit your taste buds and your health needs. If high histamine levels are on your radar, there are many ways to reduce the histamine found in your meat stock. Remember: healing meat stock only requires bony cuts of meat, water and salt — everything else is optional!
In it’s most simple form, meat stock is a short cooked stock using bony cuts of meat. I will not share a “recipe” as everyone’s needs are unique and there is no one right way to make meat stock. Rather, I will share guidelines and general directions for you to customize to fit your taste buds and your health needs. If high histamine levels are on your radar, there are many ways to reduce the histamine found in your meat stock. Remember: healing meat stock only requires bony cuts of meat, water and salt — everything else is optional!
Choose your bony cuts of meat. For chicken stock - legs, leg quarters, thighs and wings are great choices. When in doubt, choose dark meat because dark meat is closest to the bone. Chicken backs, necks and feet are perfect for adding even more healing collagen but should be in addition to meatier cuts and make up no more than half of your chicken for a batch of stock. For beef/lamb/bison stock, again, the key is to choose bony cuts of meat — shanks, ribs, oxtail, knuckles, head meat, neck bones, etc. Many butchers sell “soup bones” that make great additions to your beef stock but cuts with plenty of meat near the bone should make up at least half of your cuts for red meat stock. These bony cuts of meat are not considered “choice” cuts of meat and are typically the cheapest cuts available which is an added bonus!
Add your meat to your largest stock pot. The amount of meat you are cooking dictates the amount of water you will use for your stock. Only add enough water to cover your meat, plus about an inch. Do not add too much water or your stock will not gel and will have less flavor. Knowing how much water to add is a practiced art but my suggestion is to remember that less water always makes tastier stock.
Add salt. Since this is not a recipe, I do not provide exact measurements but you can always add more salt to taste after your stock is cooked, so start small until you find how much salt works for you. Table salt is highly refined and contains additives so table salt is not recommended for your meat stock. Focus on high quality mineral salts like Celtic sea salt and Himalayan salt. Natural salts contains necessary minerals for supporting overall health and is naturally delicious.
Add in your bonus ingredients! My suggestion is to start with a basic meat stock and then try adding different ingredients one at a time with future batches. Bonus ingredient suggestions: cracked black pepper, whole garlic bulb, onion, fresh herbs, seaweed, dried herbs, medicinal mushrooms, fresh veggies, hot peppers, etc.
Slowly bring to a boil over medium/medium high heat. The meat will scorch and burn if you crank the heat to high so be careful! Once you have a rolling boil, lower heat to a simmer. Stir occasionally and check if the heat needs adjusting to maintain a slow simmer. Chicken stock should simmer for about 2 hours and red meat should simmer for about 3 hours. Don’t forget to set your timer after you turn down the boiling stock to a simmer. {You can also use a slow cooker or pressure cooker but I suggest cooking your first few batches on the stove so you know what flavor to expect from meat stock. It is easy to over cook stock in a slow cooker or pressure cooker so be aware of that added risk.} Confirm your meat stock is ready by ensuring the meat is tender and slides off the bone. Remove from heat.
Strain meat stock into a large bowl or pot. Set aside to cool. After the meat is cooled, use your fingers to pull the meat from the bone to reserve for later use.
This final step is technically optional but it boosts your meat stock with the healing properties of adding healthy fats and collagen directly back into your stock — and it tastes delicious! Throw the chicken skin, cartilage, connective tissues and any gooey bits next to the bones into your blender. Add a little stock and blitz on high speed until smooth. Add this “cream” back into your stock and strain your stock again.
Enjoy your beautiful finished product! You can drink by the cup or use this rick stock as a base for nourishing soups. If you are drinking meat stock as the foundation of a healing diet, drinking up to 6 cups of stock a day is recommended. I suggest starting with just one cup a day and checking in to see how it makes you feel and then increasing over the next couple of weeks until you reach your goal.
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I provide clinical lactation care in Tallahassee, Florida and via my secure telehealth portal. I offer holistic lactation care to you and your baby through the lens of health and wellness with a focus on creating ease and sustainability to reduce stress and bring more joy into parenting your little one!
You can learn more about more about my services and in-network insurance benefits on my website. Online booking is available HERE! Questions or comments? Please email me!
This blog is always handwritten from my perspective and my clinical experiences — no AI slop found here!
Meat Stock vs. Bone Broth
Although bone broth is commonly recommended for gut healing diets, I always recommend healing meat stocks in lieu of bone broth. Although the terms “bone broth” and “meat stock” are often used interchangeably, there are notable differences in their nutritional profiles.
Although bone broth is commonly recommended for gut healing diets, I always recommend healing meat stocks in lieu of bone broth. Although the terms “bone broth” and “meat stock” are often used interchangeably, there are notable differences in their nutritional profiles. Bone broth cooks for a very long time — typically 24 to 48 hours in a slow cooker set on a low setting. Although some people will buy bones specifically to simmer for their bone broth, others will save bones in the freezer from previously cooked chickens or bony beef cuts. This long cooking time is said to extract minerals from the bones and some recipes call for adding apple cider vinegar to help “pull” the minerals from their bones. Some people will also add vegetable scraps, herbs and of course, salt is required for taste. No matter what specific recipe you follow, bone broth is always simmered on low for many, many hours. This cooking method brings ease of compliance for some folks because they can “set it and forget it” but long cooking times also ushers in HIGH HISTAMINE!
Histamine is a hot topic in holistic health circles for good reason. Histamine is an important chemical naturally occurring in the human body. However, some people are susceptible to high levels of histamine in their mast cells which can contribute to a myriad of negative symptoms such as bloating, diarrhea, itching with exercise or sun exposure, severe reactions to bug bites, hives, seasonal allergies, and headaches — just to name a few symptoms. High histamine and histamine intolerance goes hand in hand with poor gut health, which logically brings us back to bone broth. If the goal is to improve gut health, many people find drinking bone broth exacerbates their health issues, rather than bringing relief.
Meat stock is typically cooked on the stove top for much shorter cooking times than bone broth, dramatically reducing histamine exposure as compared to bone broth. Chicken stock simmers for about 2 hours and red meat (beef, lamb, etc.) cooks for about 3 hours. Rather than just using bones, meat stock calls for meaty cuts with the bone included. Choosing cuts of meat next to the bone has the benefit of simmering gelatinous, connective tissues into your stock. Collagen for the win! These gooey connective tissues are very similar in composition to the inner lining of the gut. Given enough time and support from other nutritional interventions, meat stock can play a big role in using food as medicine to heal leaky gut.
For chicken stock, the best cuts to choose are legs, thighs, leg quarters and backs. Adding chicken feet to your bony chicken cuts increases the collagen and guarantees meat stock that will gel beautifully in the fridge. For beef stock - shanks, oxtail, cheek meat, neck bones, joints, etc. are great choices for a rich gelatinous stock. Adding beef marrow bones also increases the nutritional value of your beef stock.
This blog post does not cover the nuances of properly preparing meat stock, rather this post serves to differentiate between meat stock and bone broth — and set my case for recommending meat stock to support gut healing.
Remember: meat stock’s purpose is to bring collagen, healthy fats and delicious (low-histamine) nourishment into our bodies to support healing our ailments from the inside out. Bone broth might be helpful for some folks in their healing journey but meat stock is always my recommendation.
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I provide clinical lactation care in Tallahassee, Florida and via my secure telehealth portal. I offer holistic lactation care to you and your baby through the lens of health and wellness with a focus on creating ease and sustainability to reduce stress and bring more joy into parenting your little one!
You can learn more about more about my services and in-network insurance benefits on my website. Online booking is available HERE! Questions or comments? Please email me!
This blog is always handwritten from my perspective and my clinical experiences — no AI slop found here!