Episode Details

Bone Deep: Your Grandmother and Mom Really Did Know How to Use Their Kitchen Like a Pharmacy.

What does a simple pot of beans simmering on the stove have in common with cutting-edge nutritional science? More than you'd ever expect. In this episode of Family Tree Food & Stories, Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely share how our moms and grandmas instinctively know how to keep our bodies strong enough to handle a heavy workload.

In this episode, Sylvia opens up about her own very personal bone health journey as she’s been undergoing cancer treatment, and a medication she takes suppresses a hormone critical for keeping bones strong. Her very real concern was the launchpad for this episode’s conversation and dive into the foods, traditions, and ancient wisdom that have helped many generations build strong bodies, long before drugstore supplements were available.

Food Wisdom From Our Parents and Ancestors:

Nancy and Sylvia dig into their shared experiences in their own family kitchens. Nancy with her mom in Central Long Island, and Sylvia’s grandmother, who was an Eastern Kentucky mountain girl.

You might be surprised to learn how much we’ve discovered about how best to manage our own bone health over the years through archaeological dig sites, Parisian bistros, Japanese candy counters, and the calcium aisle at your local friendly pharmacist.

Maybe our great-grandmothers really did know the best recipes for building strong bodies 12 ways. Listen in as we connect the Family Tree Food & Stories dots, and dishes between what we used to eat, what we stopped eating, and why we might want to eat what Mom put on our plates after all.

This is a show for foodies, family storytellers, home cooks, and anyone who's ever stood in a pharmacy staring at a wall of calcium supplements and thought, "Wait, does any of this actually work?"

Key learning points:

1. Calcium Is Just the Beginning; Your Bones Need More: Most of us grew up hearing "drink your milk." But calcium alone is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.
2. The Peasant Bone Diet: The Science of Simple Food: Anthropologists studying ancient skeletons are repeatedly surprised by how strong people were, and why.
3. "Pot Liquor" Is Liquid Gold, Don't You Dare Pour It Down the Drain! This is one of the most mind-bending food science moments: nixtamalization
4. Bone Broth: The Comeback Kid of the Kitchen: And for a good reason!

Nancy and Sylvia are pretty sure this episode of Family Tree Food & Stories will make you look at your dinner plate differently. That’s a good thing too, because it’s exactly what Family Tree Food & Stories is designed to do.

Here's what to do next:

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