As a weight loss and anti-aging specialist, I’m always looking for the easiest and most effective ways for people to look young and slim—and one of my favorite prescriptions is bone broth.

Unlike diet drugs and anti-aging creams, bone broth is completely natural. It’s broth that you make by simmering bones for hours and hours, until the bones literally melt and release deep nutrition. Bone broth is one of the world’s oldest healing foods, and it’s a powerful weight loss and anti-aging tool as well. Here’s why you should add it to your own beauty regimen:

• Weight gain often starts with a sick, leaky gut that allows toxins to escape from your digestive system into your bloodstream. These toxins set your immune system permanently to “on,” causing chronic inflammation that sickens your cells and makes you pack on weight. Bone broth is rich in gelatin and anti-inflammatory nutrients that help heal a leaky gut, eliminating chronic inflammation and causing pounds to melt away.
• Weight gain also occurs when your blood sugar is high. High blood sugar levels cause your body to release large quantities of insulin, and insulin lays down fat. Bone broth contains virtually no carbohydrates, so it keeps your blood sugar low and encourages your body to burn fat rather than storing it.
• One of the hardest parts about dieting is battling cravings. Because bone broth is rich and satisfying, it reduces cravings and makes it easy to stick to your weight loss goals. In fact, I have my patients do two “mini-fasts” each week during which they eat nothing but bone broth, and they’re amazed at how easy and painless it is.

Here’s another reason to drink bone broth: it helps erase wrinkles! Bone broth is loaded with the building blocks of collagen, so it strengthens your skin and blasts fine lines.

Want more good news? Bone broth is simple to make. You can even make it from leftover bones from your meals, so it’s budget-friendly as well. Here’s a simple recipe for beef bone broth, along with modifications if you want to try chicken or turkey broth instead.

BEEF BONE BROTH

Prep time: 10 minutes • Cook time: 10 hours • Serves: 12

Ingredients

• 2 unpeeled carrots, scrubbed and roughly chopped
• 2 stalks celery, including leafy part, roughly chopped
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 7 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 3½ pounds grass-fed beef bones (preferably joints and knuckles)
• 2 dried bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (to help dissolve the bones)

Directions

1. Place the vegetables, garlic, bones, and bay leaves into a slow cooker. Sprinkle on the salt, drizzle with vinegar, and add enough water to cover everything by 1 inch (about 13 cups).

2. Cook for 8 to 10 hours on low.

3. Use a shallow spoon to carefully skim the film off the top of the broth. Pour the broth through a fine strainer and discard the solids. Taste the broth and add more salt if needed.

4. The broth will keep for three days in the fridge and three months in your freezer.

To make poultry bone broth, substitute chicken or turkey bones and your favorite spices. Poultry broths cook in a shorter period of time (around six hours).  Also, adding dried mushrooms or using two tablespoons of fish sauce in place of salt (add it in Step 1) dramatically boosts the flavor of the broth.