 to physical therapy for a better life. I'm your host, Christine Lenders, physical therapist, board certified orthopedic clinical specialist. Today, I have a great show. We're going to be talking about how to heal yourself from the inside out. And I have an amazing guest. It is my long time and life friend, Michelle Mullen. She is a daycare owner and an herbalist and she's going to be teaching us everything we know about how we can add broth to our diet to heal from the inside out. Welcome Michelle and thank you for coming to physical therapy for a better life. Thanks for having me, Chris. I'm super excited. Oh, this is amazing. I appreciate your time. And so I need to ask, I was first introduced to the concept of bone broth with you six to eight years ago. And I remember we had a restaurant and I was enjoying a bunch of food and you had your little thermoses filled with your bone broth. You were in the first week of adding bone broth to your diet. And I was amazed because suffering from shoulder surgeries and the different joint pains I had, we went through college volleyball together and shoulder surgeries together. And you were doing something to help heal your joint pain and your issues from the inside out. Tell me, tell us all about that, please. The when, yeah, I mean, when we were at Yukon, I was a vegetarian. I would've been vegetarian since I was 11 years old. And, you know, I had always, my issue has always been the process and the treatment and so on and so forth. But as I began going to school for sustainable nutrition and to learn about herbalism and just, you know, how the body works essentially, in conjunction with discovering that I've been diagnosed with hypermobility issues. So there's a whole lot of, you know, dislocations, hence all the surgeries. And because of that, you know, animal protein is the only protein that can build tissue in the body. So it would make sense that I would need to support myself in that department, which is why I began the bone broth. And you're right, it was about six years ago and I was pregnant with my son. And I really felt, I felt a lot better, you know, I just felt a lot more or a lot less brittle, I guess, would be the best way to describe it. And the joint pain, the joint pain I've been taking Ibuprofen for, I don't even know how long, constantly, every day. And I no longer needed that. So I have had that in itself was just one of the most amazing benefits of drinking broth on a daily basis. Yeah, so that's kind of what I want to know. I've been sharing your story for years with a lot of my patients who are complaining about different ailments. And myself, I have done plenty of bone broth and I add it into my diet regularly. And I'm aware of the benefits, but I explain it to a lot of my patients who are suffering, like IBS issues related to stress, and they've had every single kind of test done for all kinds of diseases, and they all come up negative, but they've got pain everywhere, and there's no injury. They've got GI issues, and there's no problem that they're finding. And I am just explaining like, well, you know, there's different things we can do about our diet to really help us from the inside out. And I want to know, like you mentioned how bone broth and the meat bones have the collagen that helps us and the tissue from that that helps us. How can we add that into our diet? Do we need to just have for a period of time, or can we supplement our diet with that to help us with different ailments or maladies? Yeah, there's absolutely, there's huge benefits just from incorporating that into a daily habit. When it comes to the maladies that you're describing and the body function in general, after I began drinking broth, you know, like we talked about, you know, six or so years ago, I also, after my son was born, he had a number of allergies. He was covered in eczema, and I was really concerned for his health. And it was right around the time that he began, you know, trying to eat everyone else's food off the table, you know, gets to be about a year or so, and he wants to eat what you're eating. And I became really concerned about what he could eat and what he couldn't eat. And I read up on how to heal your gut lining so that you have less of a reactive system. And I came across what's called the GAPS program, and it's a gut healing protocol. And essentially, it's the most basic description is it's basically a lot of boiled meat and vegetables and fermented foods. So the reason behind that is because what you're doing when you're boiling the meat and you're boiling the vegetables into the warm water, a little bit of acid to help break down the minerals and the nutrients, it makes it, it's a much more bioavailable form to the body. It's there's no inflammation and how it's absorbed in the intestines. And it really overall supports healing within your gut, within the entire system. And I had, I did that with him. I think it was around 2018 that we began the protocol, we did it for almost two years. And I have not had, I've had migraines my entire life, I haven't had a single one since then. And like I said, I've continued the broth because of the joint pain, in order to help with that. So IBS, you know, if that's something that you're diagnosed with, you absolutely should consult the doctor, because the piece between bone broth and meat stock is bone broth is a lot higher in histamine. So if you're intolerant to histamines, it's not going to help you, it's going to hurt you even further. So it's important to discuss the the tolerance level that you have with your doctor, you might have to try it and see. I mean, basically the difference in what you're doing at home is, you know, you're making your stock, it's the same, most of the same ingredients, maybe you'll eliminate the bone piece, and just have more meat, you just don't cook it as long. So if it's, and I actually prefer on a flavor level, I prefer it less, like just to 12 hours simmer instead of like 72, some people go three days with it, cooking. So the longer it cooks, the higher the histamine amount. And you have to gauge whether or not that that's going to work for your body. That's interesting. So I didn't know that. So the difference between meat stock and the longer cooked bone broth is getting more out of the bone that's more histamines. Is that right? Yeah, there's a further extraction the longer you do it, for sure. And it matters what your goal is. So, you know, in the winter, I find that that I do prefer the deeper flavored bone broth. I'll add herbs for different nutrients, astragalus root helps with the immune system. If I feel like I'm getting a little, you know, a bit of a chill, I'll add some pepper or add some ginger. Excuse me. I always add seaweed, it's always got such great nutrients that adds iodine to the soup. So, and you know, the best part about making a stock essentially or a broth is the very is the piece that it, you know, it could, it's kind of whatever you have in the kitchen. If you have leftover celery and carrots and the standard recipe that you know you might find in a recipe book and that's great. But otherwise, if all you have is like a bone and a tomato and some herbs, that's fine too. You know, add some salt and pepper, some garlic and onion you're old. It's, it's, it's tasty and it's warming and it's very soothing. So, I've learned so much about last paragraph. I'm not even sure what to ask. I want to ask about, okay, two things. I'm going to stay on both now so I don't forget. Number one, I want to know like if you need just the meat stock because you have like inflammatory systems, I tend to use the, the, what do you call it, the Instapot, the three in one cooker. And I pressure it and it doesn't really take like 12 hours. It takes like an hour. I'm not sure. Am I getting meat stock or bone broth with that? No, that's, that's, it's, you can get bone broth if you do it longer like that. It will work just as effectively. I just don't happen. I have the big stockpile with the old school, you know, methods on the stove. It kind of, my husband doesn't love like it, you know, hearing the stove clicking all night when it's on. But um, you know, I'll just let him know, hey, you know, I'll shut it off tomorrow. But um, yeah, the Instapot from what I understand makes things a lot easier, makes it a lot easier to make this a habit. Okay, all right, that's good. And then the second thing that I want to know, and I know everybody else is probably wants to hear more of what you just said about herbs and adding some herbs to the soup for different reasons. You mentioned some, something or other for immune and I don't, straggles root or something like that. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah, you got it right. Um, yeah, there's different, you know, I tend to use the herbs that I grow, just because it's local and it's sustainable and I have a, I have a relationship with it, essentially. But you know, if there's mushrooms, that's another one you can put in there to add to your broth, as far as adding nutrients and vitamins. And again, it's the best way for your body to absorb the food is in a warm wet liquid. So yeah, it's so true. Chicken soup, like mom's chicken soup, I remember every time and to this day, when I am feeling ill, and I think there's some, I think there's some little antibiotic thing with the chicken fat that happens in chicken soup. Is that right? Like when I felt ill, I've made my homemade chicken soup, I feel better. And I think psychologically, I feel better. It's like getting a nice hug from grandma or mom, you know, it reminds you of home. But at the same time, I feel dramatically better after I have chicken soup, if I'm feeling under the weather. So the benefit of broth, right? So now I want to know, because people are watching this, they're like, Oh my gosh, this sounds amazing. I want to feel better. I can maybe get rid of joint pain, headaches, like all these different potential benefits. You know, there's meat stock and bone broth. And if I have inflammatory things, maybe I shouldn't have the bone broth, but I can have the meat stock. So how do you start? Is it best consuming it like, let's say I'm having breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I want to add bone broth and even for vanity's sake, for face and nails and hair or what do you do? Did you have it before you eat your meal on an empty stomach? Is there any rules like that? There's no real rules. I happen to enjoy, I just enjoy it in a mug, you know, and drink it. For my kids, getting them to eat that, it's a little harder. I will frequently just, if I'm making rice or quinoa, that's my liquid. That's what I'll use for my liquid. Great idea. I make noodles. I'll use that as the liquid as well. At least it's getting incorporated a little bit. You know, they're going to fight back on drinking the broth part. The other piece too that I use for the kids is when you make, you know, the broth and you have, you wind up with the fat on top and you scoop that little piece of fat off, I save that and I cook with it. So if I'm going to saute vegetables or even if I'm making mac and cheese for the kids, I'll throw that, you know, instead of butter because you can add butter sometimes, you know, throw a tablespoon of that in there. So it's probably just a little, it's the little things like that that make me feel better as a mom. Yeah, they're getting a little bit in there, you know. No, I think it's great. I think it's great. I know that this is a whole different topic, but I know that I think when we grew up, there was very, very few kids that I knew that had allergies to really anything. I think I knew a bee sting allergy kid, but I never, nobody had shellfish allergies or egg allergies or peanut butter allergies, although I knew about them because teachers would ask, say we didn't share food, but like nobody had a peanut butter allergy that I knew. And I now, I now see, I feel like every kid that I know is allergic to something. And I don't know, like you said, Sean was like, had more reactive some eczema and things like that. And this has really helped that like introducing this, I guess, nutrient rich or collagen rich to our bodies. Do you know why it works? Well, like I said, anything that's going, you know, if you consider like your body's like essentially a compost system of the food that you eat, you know, it anything that's warm and liquid, it's going to be very agreeable provided it's the right food. So again, going back to the histamine intolerance for someone that, you know, would need less histamine, you'd probably eliminate the onions and the garlic, you might have to, you know, kind of make those adjustments. But as you're, you know, just anyone that's trying to give it a whirl, go ahead and make them and drink a cup a day or add it to your diet somehow, and see how your body behaves and see how you feel. Yeah, that's great. That's true. It does go back to that the histamine and all that. So all right, I want to make bone broth. I actually, I actually a couple times have gotten a rotisserie chicken and eaten some of the meat off and then put the carcass in. So I cheated a little bit, but it was no, no, no, no. That's perfect. Okay, thank you. I'm glad I was thinking in my busy situation, I wanted to get the benefits and to me that fed me and then also enabled me to make this delicious. I mean, essentially, you're budgeting your time and that's that's exactly how it works. And if that's how you can, if that's what's going to make the habit happen for you, then absolutely do it. And also consider to the nice part about incorporating broth is you can get the lesser, excuse me, I'm shivering my office is freezing. You can get the lesser palatable cuts of meat and use those you can get the less, you know, especially if you're in an area like I am, I have farms around at processing time, I can get bones for a dollar a pound. So if you're budgeting for your groceries, you can get the most nutrients for your buck essentially, by using the bones and using those less, you know, palatable cuts of meat and making your your stock or your broth from there. Okay. Yeah, so like what you're describing is you're saving time and then there's also ways to save money. Okay, so I want to know how to save money too. And also I was actually, I've kind of done a little research here and why to try to find out like a butcher shop or something. But I found a place that I can go that is like a kind of a butcher shop, a meat shop. If I was going to go to the counter and say, I would like to get some bones to make bone broth. And I don't care if it's beef or pork or chicken or fish. Yes, all of it is a request. Okay, so that's a request you can make. And then they just give you whatever and you just take it and rinse it off or. And you know, it sounds really gross, but if chicken feet are super high in the gelatin, so that's like, it looks really gnarly in your pot when you're cooking, but you know, I did hear about that. Yeah, I know, nice little mental image I just gave you there. But I haven't been able to do it yet. Yeah, if you mix up your bones, that's a nice way to add different nutrients as well. If there's a little bit of meat on them, you can like the roasted chicken you purchased, you can roast them first and then put it in it adds more flavor that way when it caramelizes the meat that's left on the bones. Yeah, if you look, you'll find bones somewhere. I mean, it's been Hawaii, there's got to be fish all over the place. So there is. Yeah, there's fish, there's, there's, there's everything. So that's good. So then I'm going to throw it in the pot. You're going to cook yours for 12 hours or less for me stocking 12 hours or more if you're going bone broth on your stove top. Yeah. Okay. And in my Insta pot, I just hit pressure cook. And I think it does it in like half an hour, but it takes 20 minutes. It's gonna stay like 45 minutes or something like that. You can do that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's right. And then if I add like if I'm just want to get regular stuff and I don't have any inflammation that I know about, that's really insane. I could add like salt, pepper, ginger, onion, well, like everything but the kitchen sink, right? Throw the salad. Yeah, that's my favorite way to cook. If you need, if I know that there's people out there that prefer a recipe and measurements and don't cook like pinch of this kind of thing. A great reference is Sally Fallon's nourishing traditions. That's a really good reference. If anyone is looking and she covers everything she's got beef and venison and fish and chicken and lamb all different recipes for stock. What is it? Sally what? Sally Fallon. Oh, that sounds great. Okay. All right. Thanks for that. Wow. There's so much to ask. And then you have a website too is your website some place that people can go to get in touch with you or just check out what you're doing? Yeah, absolutely. There's a website and a Facebook page. And it's essentially, what's interesting, how this actually even began really is not only my personal experiences with healing through foods. Being in childcare, I've had a childcare center for 23 years now. And over the years, I have found more and more families are dealing with reactions and children and they can't figure out why, you know, they're trying a new soap or they're going to try to eliminate dairy or they're going to try all these different things because it really is trial and error. And it's really hard to navigate sometimes and that's how Kailin Crow came about was to kind of be a location to go for questions. And if I can't help with answers by no people that can. So it's basically just a consulting piece that's kind of grown from the day care. This is awesome. So I got to ask about the day care now and bone broth is or broth period. Is there any kind of like anything that you're doing or do you have little, I know you do everything because you're amazing, but like, is there any little like education things that you do with parents or kids or cooking stuff or I have in the past obviously COVID's kind of gotten in the way of some of those events. But we do look forward to incorporating those again. I've done my favorite are like the little the quick make and takes, you know, like a sauerkraut class or fermented carrots or fermented ketchup. A lot of the as a mom, I think a lot of the healthier habits that I have fallen into are the ones that are making and forget it. You know, you just did five minutes and you do it and then you leave it alone and a week later you do something else and it's done. You know, now you have a condiment that's in your fridge that you can reach for the the ketchup anytime or however, you know, and whatever you can. I don't really like to spend a lot of time and stuff even like the broth. I don't even cut the vegetables half the time, like I just throw them in whole. Yeah. So you don't even need, you know, don't even need a knife really. But everybody hearing this is loving this right now. This is like yeah. There's, you know, we've got stuff to do and kids to chase work to do in in order to make these changes in a sustainable way. They have to be really easy. So yeah, you nailed it on the head. So gosh, what did you say that gave me a good question? Oh, fermented stuff. So I love the idea of fermented stuff apparently like here in Kauai a lot of people eat kimchi, but sauerkraut is something as Polish, right? Like in German, like you love the sauerkraut and you mentioned fermented carrots and fermented ketchup, like some of the benefits. Tell us all about fermented stuff because I remember with the gaps program you need to have the fermented stuff because you're basically eating chicken bone broth and you want to keep everything kind of moving. There's really, you're not really eating any insoluble fiber to help your system be that compost that it needs to be. So what about fermented stuff? Tell me why we need that. Well, that's going to, you know, the way I describe it to my kids is, you know, your gut bacteria has good guys and it's got bad guys. And if there's too many bad guys, well, then you don't feel good. You know, so what basically this is doing fermented foods will feed those good guys. And, you know, and my it's it's fermented carrots. I do like carrot sticks because that's an easy one because then all they have to especially for kids is they just pull them out of the jar and dip them in ranch and they're eating them, you know, like it's like I said, it's I really go for the easy, easy incorporations, ketchup, obviously ketchup on everything. Oh my gosh, I never even heard of fermented ketchup. And most people like ketchup. It's just one of those things that we it's like sweet, sweet tomatoes. Well, how do you make what is it what's required to make a fermented let's say, carrots, you chop it up, right? Like, yeah, in my case, it's really, it's the brain that you're making. So for example, when you're making sauerkraut, you can macerate the cabbage to a point where it creates its own liquid and all you have to do is add salt. And, you know, if you have in this again, in the spirit of making this sustainable, my kids can make it because it's just this giant bowl of chopped up cabbage, they help with the chopping it, you know, four or five years old, they get in their elbow deep and they're squishing it and they're you know, mushing it up and they they can enjoy the process which is going to make them a lot more likely to try it. Whereas for like the carrot sticks, essentially what you're doing for that is creating cutting your carrots in a way that you know that your kids will snack on them, and you're creating a brine and adding it there and you leave it out on the counter for a week or so. So it allows the fermentation process to begin that way, but it does need you do need to provide the liquid for that. Okay, so and then for fermented ketchup, it's basically you're draining the way from your yogurt and adding it to a recipe where um you have you know tomato paste and garlic and yeah a little bit of vinegar I think I'm trying to remember what else is in there um and you can I've added chipotle powder to it so that actually kind of gives it a little more of a grown-up flavor which is nice so yeah. This is so great. I'll make sure everything's on the Kalenkraut website and so people please do I'm gonna be I'm gonna be all over this weekend well I love I love the part two like you get your kids involved in the kitchen I mean what kid doesn't like to play in the kitchen and make a mess and throw stuff around but like you're not you're making food that you're gonna eat and you're enjoying the process and I think so many of the things like as adults that we have linked up that are habits today are because we enjoy them and I think if kids are in the kitchen doing this stuff and they're making it you're just getting the fun factor as a kid you don't care if it's healthy for you when you're a kid you just want it to be fun you want to hang out with your mom and dad and you're doing projects and staying busy but I like that it links up like me as an adult thinking back to cooking or gardening or things with your mom that maybe you didn't like doing back then you love now because you link it up to this this positive thing that brings you so much joy which helps us live a long life right. That is a huge piece of the healing absolutely joy having helping with the healing from the inside out yeah this is great so all right we have just a few minutes left and I always want to I don't even know if I want to ask you anything in particular but is there anything else you want to say about of broth and benefits and helping kids and helping adults and helping us all heal like you said from the inside I really my main thing is creating confidence in the kitchen so don't be afraid to try stuff and don't be afraid to mess it up and try again you know which is totally fine just keep trying until you get it right until you get a pattern that works for you. That is great I know a lot of people are doing a food prep these days right on their Sundays they're making all this food and packaging it up for their week so they have things for the kids they have things for themselves and then their week goes more smoothly with the breakfasts the lunches and you're on your way out the door and I know that a lot of people that are watching this are now going to be either figuring out how to get their stock pot on their stove I don't have a stove I have a small apartment so I have a electric skillet I've got all kinds of pots I have huge pots to put on the other instant pot that instant pot's gonna do it for you this pot's great and you know what it is it is nice because I feel like when I when I cook it fast in there the flavor is amazing and I think the key for everybody watching who's using an instant pot is don't vent it yourself so it's gonna yeah don't do it I've read that as well I'm gonna have to go try the instant pot no I know I got it as a gift from one of my patients that wanted me to be able to afford to stay in Hawaii they just said here we have an extra one take this instant pot and I've made so many things in the instant pot including my bone broth and I vented it once myself because I wanted to start cooling it and it doesn't get everything out of what you need it's the self venting which just leave it in there for a couple hours it'll vent itself even though it stopped cooking and then you're ready to enjoy it it's beautiful I've done what you done I put it in a cup and it tastes delicious so terrific oh my gosh well thank you so much Michelle this is really nice thanks for having me Chris this was great and I hope everybody gets to enjoy feeling better from the inside out thanks for watching and as always life is better when you listen to your physical therapist hello hi everyone thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii dot com mahalo