This article has been updated. Where I thought I was clear before, I revisited it to check for some broken links, and in the process, realized I was still dancing around the truth.

Shame on me for that and I'm about to correct the problem, once and for all. Let me be crystal clear here, for you and your family.

Five years ago, I reviewed probably 20+ different bone broths on the market (the good, the bad, and the ugly boxed broths, thin, smelly, watery, and void of nutrition...).

The thing is, I really held back some of my initial thoughts about one of the biggest influences in the bone broth industry, Kettle & Fire and another big brand behind the scenes, addressed here.

They are two boys who started a distribution brand of mainly soups and broths (that don't gel, I might add)...

It's all marketing. I'm talking about their rampant 'success.' It's nice to see others succeed, but at what cost? Hint: your health... You deserve a truly amazing, nutritive, nourishing bone broth that makes you say "wow."

Kettle & Fire panders to big names in the health blogging industry with tons of followers.

I've seen Terry Wahls, for example, promoting a different, but also bad (distributed, non-gelling broth brand) for kickbacks, as well as Sarah Ballantyne, who last I checked, was sponsored by Kettle & Fire, and it's just a bad broth.

Almost 0 nutritional value compared to, for example, Bonafide.

Each of said persons promote health and wellness, but most of all nutrition.

Do they become 'hacks' for supporting bad brands or brands that don't live up to or even compare to other brands? That's your call. We use Sarah's books in our Advanced Holistic Nutrition Program, but I find it less than honorable that she knowingly supports a brand that is not giving her followers optimal nutrition. So, in case you were wondering, ethics come into question here.

If you follow her, (Sarah), a woman who has written two incredible books on holistic nutrition, and she's peddling a brand of bone broth that doesn't gel or compare to say, for example, Bonafide, then it stands to reason that you (or her followers) are going to use that brand.

Kettle & Fire is a bone broth distributor, not a maker, like all boxed broths with few exception. I will note here that Bonafide has joined the box broth club, and that's the only one of it's kind (in a box) you should probably ever buy.

It's gross and birdy like Cauldron Broths. Cauldron owners are nice, but they have birdy broth. Yes, it gels, but I found it super gross. The problem is that they make (manufacture) and distribute their broth, meaning a lot of people are consuming 'birdy' smelling broth.

If you can't smell the 'birdy' odor in Kettle & Fire, or for example, or in 'Oh So Good Broths,' (the latter of which is also a Cauldron broth), then your nose is off.

Or you have become desensitized to it, and you don't know a good broth from a bad broth. It's just the truth. Please don't support brands blindly.

I mean, it's one thing to experiment. There's no broth I haven't tried.

However, to defend one, or be officially 'loyal' is a huge faux pax if the brand secretly is letting you down and you just don't know it. This is not just a 'brand' issue.

This is not 'what team are you on.' This is about the money you are spending to nourish your family and heal leaky gut, what some of our graduates (hello, Ivy) theorize as the root cause of all illness.

Health is in the gut. Why keep giving money to two men who aren't even making their own broth, just selling and marketing it, when there are incredible women-owned brands (the gender of the owner is irrelevant), but if you can support women-ran business, who make a superior product, why wouldn't we?

Isn't that what a free market is about outside of marketing budgets and mass brainwashing by morally complicit and ethically questionable celebrities. Sarah may not be Kim K, but she is famous in the nutritional and health sectors.

These people should do better. We should expert more (non-bias) from these people, and I am ashamed I waited so many years to call this out for what it is. Shameless profiteering and a racket. We're talking about people's health.

They should have sought better brands to work with but instead, they're show ponies. Let me note right here that I get it. People do crazy things for money. I otherwise love Sarah and Terry, both, even though they don't know me or care probably what I have to say. I just know I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I promoted a brand that wasn't helping heal a child's leaky gut. Broth is expensive.

If you can't make your own (of course, always ideal), then you should be able to trust the brand you buy to do the same, or an almost equal job, as what you make at home. If that broth isn't cumulatively resealing that leaky gut, then why is it even on the shelves? Oh, because of mob mind and mass marketing (brainwashing).

Please experiment with Bare Bones, Bonafide, and Best of the Bone for a real, true broth. I love Bonafide Provisions, Best of the Bone, and Bare Bones.

You can watch that video here.

We're using this blog piece to highlight our favorites (to this day), and give you links to try them yourself.

Let's get started.

Herbal Doctors Best of the Bone bone broth concentrate is one of the most nourishing broths. It makes my body feel really good from the salt and electrolytes.

This is one of my favorite broths I like to always have on hand and use for almost everything, but you have to order it online, and it's so worth it.

The Herbal Doctors "Best of the Bone" original or turmeric, —both great, but if I had to pick one, get the original.

This is the Bonafide Provisions bone broth store locator, a broth I buy if I am at the grocery like Whole Foods, Earth Fare or Sprouts.

My favorite is their keto butter broth or the MCT one. My daughter loved the butter one and added a bit more pastured, organic butter to it to heal her leaky gut.

The best price is Whole Foods w/a Prime Membership.

Honorable mentions? Good to have on hand?

Birthright Nutrition (order online)

Bare Bones (health food store)

Broth Master's Bone Broth (also online, made by a mother / daughter duo),

—note this broth is a beef and chicken base and the best of the best.

However if you are sensitive to onion or garlic you will want to avoid this incredibly flavorful, rich, decadent bone broth.

Ketologie powdered beef and chicken bone broths.

I love to have all of these bone broths on hand for different reasons.

You'll get to see these broths up close and personal in our bone broth review on YouTube here.

Worst Broths?

Cauldron Broths, Osso Good, Epic, Kettle & Fire are all BIRDY and smell vile (just being honest).

Pretty sure these are all distributors, except Cauldron which does a lot of private label broths in the industry.

Pretty sure Osso is a Cauldron broth, which explains the same, familiar terrible smell.

Not sure how people get these broths down. These broths all make me gag. I literally can smell it in the glass and can't even take one sip.