The Bone Broth I Make for My Skin, My Gut, and My Hashimoto's
A Ritual From The Kitchen
for the gut, the skin, and the nervous system
The broth I simmer when my body needs everything — collagen for the skin, gelatin for the gut lining, glycine for a calmer nervous system.
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As an esthetician, I spend my days looking closely at other people's skin. The women who come to see me at the functional medicine clinic where my studio is come in for acne that won't quit, for redness that refuses to calm, for the kind of slow-aging that seems to arrive a decade early. And almost without exception, when we trace the skin story back far enough, it begins in the gut.
This is something I learned clinically before I learned it personally. Then came my own Hashimoto's diagnosis, and suddenly I was on the other side of my own treatment room — asking the same questions I'd been helping my clients answer for years. The gut. The thyroid. The inflammation. The skin. How do you actually feed a body that is trying to heal itself?
Bone broth became my foundation. Not because it is a cure — nothing is — but because it is the most concentrated, bioavailable, whole-food source of the things a compromised gut needs to rebuild: gelatin, collagen, glycine, glutamine, minerals. I drink a cup in the morning, before anything else touches my system. I drink another before bed, when the glycine works its quiet magic on the nervous system. I recommend it to my clients. I make sure there is always a jar in my own fridge. It is, without exaggeration, the single most impactful wellness habit I have ever kept — for my skin, my gut, and my autoimmunity all at once.
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You sadly can't serum your way out of an inflamed gut. The skin is always telling us what's happening inside. |
Why This Works
If you struggle with breakouts that won't quit, skin that ages faster than it should, a flaring autoimmune condition, or some tangled combination of the three — there is almost certainly a gut story underneath. Functional medicine has been saying it for years, and the peer-reviewed research has caught up: intestinal permeability (commonly called "leaky gut") is one of the three pillars of autoimmune disease, alongside a genetic predisposition and an environmental trigger. When the tight junctions in your intestinal lining loosen, particles that should never reach your bloodstream cross over, and the immune system starts firing. That fire shows up as thyroid antibodies. As acne. As inflammation you can see in the mirror.
I see this pattern in my treatment room constantly: the client with cystic acne who also has bloating she can't explain. The client with mystery redness whose most recent bloodwork just came back with autoimmune activity. The client whose skin looks a decade older than her chronological age, whose gut has been whispering (and then shouting) for years. The thing is, our skin is never the whole story. It is, almost always, the last page of a longer one.
Bone broth addresses this at the source:
Gelatin — extracted from the collagen in bones, tendons, and chicken feet — helps seal and soothe the gut lining. It's the reason a well-made broth gels when chilled.
Glutamine is the primary fuel for your intestinal cells. When the gut is stressed, it's the nutrient those cells reach for first.
Glycine is both an amino acid and an inhibitory neurotransmitter. It calms the central nervous system, helps lower core body temperature for sleep, and supports the body's own glutathione production (the master antioxidant that does so much of the heavy lifting for detox and autoimmune modulation).
Collagen and its amino acids Proline, hydroxyproline, and glycine are the building blocks your skin uses to repair. More elasticity, fewer fine lines and faster healing of acne scars and post-inflammatory marks.
Remember: You aren't making soup, you're making liquid gold, gut sealing infrastructure!
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The Recipe
Makes roughly 1 large stockpot · Yields 10–14 cups
Every ingredient here was chosen on purpose. I built this recipe the same way I build a serum — for bioavailability, for intention, for what the body can actually receive and use.
The Bones
3 lbs chicken feet
2 large beef bones (marrow or knuckle)
The Aromatics
2 large onions, halved (leave the skins on, as they hold the quercetin)
1 whole bulb of garlic, cloves smashed
2 leeks, roughly chopped
5 celery stalks
3 carrots
A generous handful of shiitake mushrooms
3 bay leaves
5 Chinese star anise pods
6 fresh turmeric nubs (or 2 tbsp dried)
1 large knob of ginger, sliced
2 tsp black peppercorns
The Finishing
3 tbsp raw apple cider vinegar
Filtered water to cover bones by 2 inches
A large bunch of fresh parsley (added at the end)
Salt, to taste
A note on turmeric and black pepper: I use them together on purpose. Piperine (the active compound in black pepper) dramatically increases the bioavailability of curcumin in turmeric. This is why Ayurvedic traditions have paired them for centuries. This way your body can actually use what you put in.
My Method
01
Blanch the feet
Drop the chicken feet into boiling water for 30 seconds to a minute, lift them out, and (deep breath) snip the nails off with kitchen shears. Yeah, it's as charming as it sounds. Return the feet to a clean pot of boiling water and simmer for another 10 minutes, then drain and rinse. This step is worth it: you get a cleaner broth, a clearer color, and something much easier on a sensitive gut to digest. Also sadly the nails can hold debris that is hard to see (yuck).
02
Build the pot
Add the blanched chicken feet, beef bones, all of the aromatics, the turmeric, ginger, peppercorns, and apple cider vinegar into a large stockpot. Cover with filtered water by two inches.
03
Let it sit
Before you turn on a single burner, let the pot rest at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes. This is a traditional step and it sets the tone for the whole process, but slow is the point.
04
Bring to a gentle simmer
Warm the pot slowly and bring it to the softest simmer and keep it there. In the first hour, skim off any foam that rises to the surface.
Cook times:
Stovetop 12 to 18 hours
Slow cooker (low) 18 to 24 hours
Pressure cooker / Instant Pot 2.5 to 3 hours on high
05
Add parsley at the end
In the last 20 to 30 minutes, stir in the entire bunch of fresh parsley. Adding it late preserves its volatile oils, its vitamin C, and its chlorophyll, all of which are heat-sensitive and largely lost if you add it at the start.
06
Strain and finish
Ladle through a fine-mesh strainer into jars. I use a cheese cloth over my strainer into the jars to really stop the debris getting through. Then salt to taste — I like a pinch of pink salt or a good sea salt. Cool, refrigerate, and use within a week, or freeze for up to three months.
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The Tell
Once your broth is fully chilled, it should jiggle like jelly! This is how you know you've done it right — and more importantly, it's how you know your broth is doing what you made it to do.
A broth that gels is a broth rich in collagen. That jiggle translates to gut-lining support, joint and skin benefits, and enough satiating protein that a single cup can steady your blood sugar for hours. If your broth doesn't gel, it isn't ruined at all, and it's still very nourishing. Next time just add more chicken feet. They're the secret.
How I Use It
First thing in the morning: 1 cup, warm. Before coffee. Before food. A gentle way to wake the gut, steady cortisol, and deliver amino acids the body has been rebuilding with all night.
Before bed: 1 cup. The glycine here is the quiet hero. It calms the nervous system, lowers core body temperature slightly (which is what the brain needs to drop into deep sleep), and supports an evening wind-down the way tea pretends to but rarely does.
As a base. For soups. For cooking rice or grains. For braising vegetables. Any time a recipe asks for water or stock, this is what I reach for instead. Every meal is an opportunity to keep feeding the gut the things it needs.
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A Final Thought
Your skin is the last place to receive and the first place to show. What you do in the bathroom mirror matters, but it is never the full picture. A serum cannot undo what the gut is doing from the inside. Real, lasting luminosity, the kind that doesn't come off with your makeup, is always built from two directions at once. Inside and outside. Ritual and nutrition.
I formulate skincare the same way I formulate this broth: for what the body can actually receive and use. My morning ritual starts with stretching, going outside to get direct sun with my sweet dog Noodle, sipping on my bone broth, gentle movement and facial massage with my facial oil.
It's what I give my body when it needs everything- now it's all yours!
With love and radiance,
Omayma
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The Inside-Out Ritual Feed the gut, feed your skin, and |