By Rieva Lesonsky
The latest miracle beverage goes back to caveman days.
Who among us didn’t grow up with some type of soup touted as a cure-all? It seems every ethnicity has its own flavor guaranteed to make us feel better. But all soups have something in common—and it starts with the broth.
According to a recent article in The New York Times, today’s hot broth (sorry, couldn’t resist) is bone broth, bolstered by the popularity of the numerous Paleo diet plans. Paleo (a kind of back-to-caveman-type eating) devotees and others, says The Times, have made bone broth “a trend beverage, ranking with green juice and coconut water as the next magic potion in the eternal quest for perfect health.”
Bone broth can be made from all sorts of animal bones, including beef, chicken, fish and turkey. The Times and Fast Company (which also just covered the brothing phenomenon) talked to chef Marco Canora, who just launched “Brodo, a storefront window in [New York City’s] East Village attached to his restaurant, Hearth, where three different flavorful broths are dispensed in paper cups.” Customers can customize their broth orders, adding such goodies as chile oil or bone marrow.
Canora told Fast Company he likens drinking broth to coffee, and his site tells consumers, “Rethink your hot beverage.”
Both The Times and Fast Company note the growth in the number of restaurants adding broth, as well as food stores and websites selling it. On a personal, not entrepreneurial, note, you can order the broth from Bare Bones Broth (pictured left), which sells it nationwide.
As for its future, can broth infiltrate our food system on the level of Starbucks? Or is the trend a passing one? I wouldn’t bet against its staying power, since as The New York Times says, “broth combines mystical connections to the ancient world and demonstrable nutrition benefits in the modern one.” Sounds like a winning combination to me.
Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a media and custom content company focusing on small business and entrepreneurship. Email Rieva at rieva@smallbizdaily.com, follow her on Google+ and Twitter.com/Rieva.
Photo Courtesy: Bare Bones Broth
