Unhealthy to the Bone – AGE OF AUTISM
By Cathy Jameson
We had a very busy week last week. Busy is good! But it means I didn’t have a chance to sit down and type the piece I wanted to write. Instead of something fresh for you today, I’m posting an old story that I shared with family and friends.
We parents had to be very creative with our children – their schooling, their therapies and their special diet. This story is about a time when I was trying to do something healthy. You will be so glad that your device is not equipped with an odor-o-scope as you read this.
Enjoy!
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I woke up just after 7 a.m. this morning and smelled a hint of something rancid. Oh my word The smell. Ronan was still asleep when I sniffed what I sniffed, but I immediately thought, Oh no. Ronan must have pooped sometime in the middle of the night. Poor child. I have to wake him up to change his diaper. I went into Ronan’s room and the smell disappeared. That was good. But that meant that the source of the stench was from elsewhere.
After moving Ronan, I headed for the kitchen. The smell permeated this room and into our cave. Was it the trash can? No, but I took out the trash anyway. Strange. The garage also stank badly. My goodness! What’s that smell?
I went back into the house and called my husband, “Hey, I think something died in the garage. Call me back when you get the chance. ”As I went to the kitchen, my elder came around the corner. “Mom! You left the oven on … all night ?!” I nodded and said, “Honey, this is bone broth. You should cook it for hours.”
I repeated that first sentence in my head: … it’s bone broth …
Oh. No. It can’t be the bone broth that is causing this smell, can it? That stuff is all healthy stuff. And we’ll eat it when it’s ready. It can’t be what’s so stinky.
It can?
Um …
I quickly opened Facebook and wrote:
Bone broth people … should the aroma of the broth simmering softly on the stove smell like a hundred little forest dwellers who died in my kitchen? Good night, Irene! The smell! Pooh! And gag! And um! What I have done wrong???
I got answers right away. Some were comforting. Friends said I’m doing a “great job mom!” because their bone broth also produces a pungent “roadkill” and “carcass” smell when cooked.
Furious! I thought.
But then not everyone agreed. Other friends’ bone broth didn’t stink or smell disgusting like mine. These friends said their bone broth smelled fabulous! Fantastic! Great! amazing! also.
Oh man. There were too many conflicting opinions. And none of them reduced the awful smell that still wafted through my house. If I wanted the smell of lazy forest dwellers to go away, I knew I had to do one thing: get rid of the bone broth.
I’ve reduced the cooking time for this batch. I had to – the stench was just too much. I turned off the heat and simmered the broth. Then I took the bones out of the Dutch Oven, put them in a trash bag and threw the ridiculousness in the trash can outside.
Once inside, I poured the broth into a large glass bowl as soon as it had cooled. Nothing to waste, I covered the bowl with cooked bone broth and put it in the fridge. My plan was to give it a try. But later. I didn’t know if I could bear to eat it while the carcass smell was still there.
Fast forward a few hours …
I left a window open all day to get some fresher-smelling air into the house. I also distributed some purification oil which I can assure was bought online rather than from CVS so that the house would lose some of the dead forest dweller that I could still smell.
I haven’t tried the broth yet. I promise I will. But that will happen on another day when it doesn’t smell so bad anymore.
Blogged December 2014
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I never tasted this bone broth. Made from chicken bones from a small roasting pan, the stench continued to stink as it chilled in the refrigerator. As it cooled, the smell turned into a combination of an earthy, herbal death scent. I don’t eat anything with a death scent, so I dumped it in a hole in the back yard far from the house. I’ll try beef bones next time.
Store shared June 2018
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I’m buying bone broth in the store now.
Cathy Jameson is co-editor for Age of Autism.
* Sorry to Ronan for assuming that his diaper was the smelly culprit. Sorry to my aunt Irene for using her name to no avail. And apologize to any forest dwellers I may have offended while writing this post. J
